Farida Hamak
French Algerian Photographer
In August of 2005, upon invitation by the French Cultural
Centre, I came to Jordan in order to begin working on a photography
project about the Jordan River. Faced with the many difficulties
that I encountered while trying to approach the river banks,
I decided to focus my work, instead, on the area surrounding
the river, the territory of the Jordan Valley. A number of
stays followed during which the valley continued to cast its
spell on me and the river continued to attract me. A fascination
fed by the constant back and forth between the extremes of
sumptuousness and diminution, shadow and light… and by the
fragility of places haunted by the exile of the river…this
flower that no one looks at any more, but which the ancients
guarded in the crevices of their memory.
It is from this long journey that these images came to light,
gathered fragments of life at the bend of the Jordan River,
of which a history continues to be written.
Farida
Hamak was born in Algeria. She lives and works in Paris. It
was a tour around the world and a coincidence- a camera bought
in Singapore- that brought her to photography. In 1977, a
trip to Algeria helped in triggering her passion for the photograph.
A member of the Viva Agency since 1980 and a war correspondent
in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war for Newsweek, she
returned to photojournalism after a detour into the world
of fashion. Since 1999, she has been working on subjects related
to Algeria and the Middle-East. In 2004 she published "Ma
mere, histoire d'Une immigration," which was later explored
in a video. Her work has been showcased around the world in
both solo and group exhibitions. Today, she continues her
work on "traces," which began in 1982.
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