RheaKaram
Rhea Karam was born in Beirut and grew up between the U.S. and France.
She is based in NY where she graduated from the International Center
of Photography in 2007 and was the recipient of a director’s scholarship.
Her work focuses on documenting domestic and urban environments with
an emphasis on public walls and the role they play in our daily lives. In 2009
she published Breathing Walls, a visual archive of the political transition
in Lebanon. Her work has been exhibited internationally in both solo and
group shows and has won several awards among which are the Silver
Eye Fellowship commendation award, best of show at the Colorado
Photographic Arts Center and was named top 10 emerging Middle
Eastern artists to watch by CNN.
Déraciné (Uprooted)
The series Déraciné (Uprooted) consists of trees I have photographed in New York, printed,
painted, transported and “replanted” so to speak onto public walls of Lebanon through the
process of wheat pasting questioning the lack of urban planning and viable green space.
After placing the tree in its new environment I then photograph it in context as a record of
its new modified habitat. This physical intervention alters the urban landscape and tackles
the personally relevant theme of identity and it’s relationship to the urban environment by
the symbolic gesture of being uprooted from one country to another.
Rhea Karam . Treescape #04, Déraciné (Uprooted) Series, Lebanon . 2015
r he a ka r a m . co m
16 Nueva Luz
Nueva Luz 17