Mohamad Abdouni
Mohamad Abdouni is an artist, photographer, filmmaker and curator based between Beirut and Istanbul. He is also Editor in-Chief and Creative Director of COLD CUTS magazine, the photo journal exploring queer cultures in the SWANA region.
His work has been exhibited namely at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the FOAM Gallery in Amsterdam, L’Institut du Monde Arabe and the Institute of Islamic Culture in Paris, Patel Brown in Toronto, Photo Arles and the Lyon Biennale amongst others.
Mohamad’s films have been screened and awarded at festivals such as Eyes Wide Open and the Leeds Queer Film Festival in the UK, IQMF in Amsterdam, The Brooklyn Museum and Woodbury LGBTQ Film Festival in the US, and Pink Apple Schwullesbisches Lesbian & Gay Film Festival in Switzerland to name a few.
Commercially, he has shot for and directed narrative fashion films and music videos with the likes of Gucci, Vogue US, Vogue Italia, Burberry, Puma, The New York Times, Slate, Fendi, Farfetch, GQ, King Kong, Dazed, Another, Nowness, Vice UK and L’officiel.
His personal endeavors tend to focus on the untold stories of Beirut and uncovering the rich yet eradicated queer histories of the Arab- speaking region through several documentaries and photo stories that have been featured in publications from A24, Telerama, Foam Magazine, Tetu, New Queer Photography, Kaleidoscope, i-D, Photoworks, The Guardian, Facebook and more.
As of late he has dedicated his time to working on what is arguably the first archive of trans* histories in an Arab country, a project entitled Treat Me Like Your Mother: Trans* Histories From Beirut’s Forgotten Past. The collection resides safely today at the Arab Image Foundation.
Mohamad Abdouni is Lafayette Anticipations’ prize winner for 2024