Alumni Gazette
INTERPRETIVE VIEWS: Focusing on the contemporary history of his native Lebanon, Raad works in several media, including still photography鈥攁bove, prints from the series, 鈥淪weet Talk: Commissions (Beirut)_Plate 050鈥�; below, a print from 鈥淲e Decided to Let them Say 鈥榃e Are Convinced,鈥� Twice.鈥� (Photos: 漏 Walid Raad and Walid Raad/The Atlas Group; Courtesy of Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London)
(Photo: 漏 The Atlas Group/Walid Raad/Courtesy of Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London)Contemporary media artist Walid Raad 鈥�96 (PhD) has a long list of awards to his name. In March, he added another, one that some fine art photographers consider the grand prize in the field, the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography.
Working in a variety of media鈥攕till photography, video, audio, performance, and essays鈥擱aad has focused his art on the contemporary history of his native Lebanon, and in particular, on the representation of traumatic events during the civil war that took place there from 1975 until the early 1990s.
Raad spent most of his childhood and his early teens in East Beirut and settled later in the United States, where he earned his undergraduate degree in fine art photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology. In 1989, he entered Rochester鈥檚 then new Graduate Program in Visual and Cultural Studies.
In an online chat moderated by the foundation following the announcement, Raad said, 鈥淪ome extreme situations permit artists, writers, and thinkers to produce new concepts and forms.鈥� As far as his focus on the wars in Lebanon, he said, 鈥淭here are certain images, sounds that I cannot get out of my mind. They stay with me.鈥�
The Hasselblad Foundation has recognized a single photographer annually since 1980. 鈥淲alid Raad is one of the most original and singular contemporary artists using photography,鈥� the five-member award committee noted in a joint statement regarding their decision.
鈥擪aren McCally