kadir van lohuizen 'ali & laila' exhibition

Last week NOOR photographer Kadir van Lohuizen's exhibition 'Ali & Laila, An Amsterdam Family History' exhibition opened at the Amsterdam museum. The exhibition portrays the Dutch-Moroccan Rharib family from Amsterdam East.

In 1993, Kadir met the family for the first time and spent some time with father Ali, mother Laila and their five children. Kadir photographed them in their daily life and followed Laila and her husband to Morocco during their holidays to their home country.

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Final goodbye before the annual return to Morocco. Hamza says goodbye to his uncle.  Amsterdam, 1993

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Nora, Fatima and Farida in the courtyard of the house where Laila was born. Amsterdam, 1993

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In 2013, 20 years later, Kadir was visiting a friend in the hospital when he bumped into a woman who recognized the photographer from her childhood. At first, Kadir did not recognize Nora, the youngest daughter of the Rharib family, as she had become a young woman and was herself now a mother. Nora was there at the hospital because her father Ali was ill from Alzheimers. Nora told Kadir. "Don't you recognize me? "We need you to come," she said simply. "My father is going to die."

Kadir and the Rharib family watch the multimedia installation at the 'Ali & Laila' exhibition.

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The multimedia installation at the 'Ali & Laila' exhibition.

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Once again the Rharib family invited Kadir into their lives and he soon joined them, as he did 20 years earlier, to Marroco. Kadir wondered what had changed in the meantime. Did the Rharib family found their place in Dutch society? How had the years in Amsterdam shaped their identity? Kadir documented how their lives had developed. Through this extended family portrait, the exhibit 'Ali & Laila' explores questions of identity, culture & integration in the Netherlands.

The exhibition runs until 8 March 2015 at the Amsterdam Museum.
More info: http://www.amsterdammuseum.nl/kadir-van-lohuizen

Tune in!

Kadir was a guest on the Dutch radio show 'Nooit Meer Slapen'. In the program he talks about the exhibition and his work as a photojournalist. You can listen to the show online (in Dutch) here.

Photos © Johannes De Bruycker

about thinking visually

This week in Hilversum, the Netherlands the RNW-NOOR Academy kicked off with a three-day training on visual storytelling for a select group of editors working for Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW). The 14 participants represent different regional editorial departments of RNW being the Arab, Africa, Latin America and China Desks. Amongst the participants were also social media editors and web designers from the ‘Themes & Projects’ department.

The group, together with NOOR photographer Kadir van Lohuizen and photography consultant and photo editor Claudia Hinterseer, learned how to select and develop visual stories from existing photographic material.

 “It’s great to see the enthusiasm amongst the participants. Everyone seems eager to explore new ways of visual storytelling on their respective online platforms and get inspired by Kadir and other great photographers’ work,” said Claudia Hinterseer. “It’s very interesting to discuss topics like image quality and resources, ethical and copyright issues, and sequencing with this varied and energized group.”

Claudia Hinterseer gave an introduction to picture editing and led a hands-on session where the participants had to prepare an online thematic slideshow from scratch, using the themes and resources available to RNW, in order to make the exercise as realistic as possible.

 “It’s almost like making a movie,” said Kadir van Lohuizen about working on long-term multimedia projects. “The difference between making a movie and being a photographer is that you have to do everything yourself, the research, the planning, the shooting, etc.”

Kadir van Lohuizen showed and talked about his extensive project Via PanAm and allowed the group to edit a part of his story, which lead to interesting discussions about different opinions and ways of editing a story.

Kadir also reflected on how nowadays he uses video as part of the process: “For me with video it is the sequence that makes it strong. With stills it is the decisive moment that makes it strong. I use video more to support my stills.”

 

“The NOOR photography workshop really opened my eyes to great tools and ways to build a photo story,” commented Issa Shaker video editor at the Arab Desk.

Catarina Gomez, social media editor at the Themes & Projects department, found the workshop very refreshing:  “Photo editing is not only about illustrating your written story, it's about thinking visually how to tell your story. I never thought it was possible to tell a story with just still images.”

As part of the RNW-NOOR Academy, Jon Lowenstein and Sebastian Liste will conduct a training in Mexico City from October 20-24 for 10 young visual storytellers from Latin America. After the initial 5 day workshop the group will be mentored for three months by the NOOR photographers.

NOOR pechakucha in new york

NOOR’s 7th Annual General Meeting was held in New York City from June 9 to 13. This year, we organized a special public event on Friday June 13 for people to come meet NOOR at a PechaKucha evening. With presentations from our photographers, the event showcased NOOR’s dedication to explore the human side of complex, global issues, as well as long-term and collaborative projects.

See some photos from the event below.

Stanley Greene presented his work from Chechnya and Dagestan.

Francesco Zizola spoke about his new ongoing project on overfishing around the world.

Andrea Bruce spoke about her most recent project about the cotton widows of India.

Kadir van Lohuizen presented his Rising Sea Levels project.

Benedicte Kurzen presented her work on the Boko Haram kidnappings in Nigeria.

Nina Berman first spoke about NOOR's outdoor installation project at Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. Later, she presented her work Evidence, part of NOOR's Modern Day Slavery group project.

Jon Lowenstein presented his long-term project about the South Side of Chicago.

world press photo pop-up group exhibition

All of NOOR's photographers have a strong connection to World Press Photo, as award winners, Joop Swart Masterclass participants and educators, jury members, or supervisory board members. To celebrate this fact, and with the World Press Photo Awards Days fast approaching, NOOR presents a small pop-up exhibition in an informal setting, featuring relevant work by all our photographers.

NOOR's pop-up exhibition is currently hanging at the Cafe de Engelbewaarder, which is situated just over the canal from Het Compagnie Theater, the location of this year's World Press Photo Awards Days. The exhibition runs until May 12th.

Address Engelbewaarder: Kloveniersburgwal 59, 1011 JZ Amsterdam.

This exhibition is supported by Nikon Europe.

All printing by FotolabKieKie.

Exhibition photos by Jen Tse.

kadir van lohuizen's sea level work in the new york times

NOOR's Kadir van Lohuizen has worked extensively around the world to produce broad, compelling work on global rising sea levels. This work has just been published as a substantial piece in the New York Times, online and in print.

"Rising Seas" includes a collection of slideshows and detailed information about some of the areas most vulnerable to rising seas around the globe, showing the magnitude and scope of the problem through individual area profiles. A related article, entitled Borrowed Time on Disappearing Land, focuses on how Bangladesh is confronting the problem as one of the world's most vulnerable nations, although it has contributed minimally to carbon emissions. The work in Bangladesh also includes three videos that further illustrate the situation through glimpses of everyday life and a map visualization of the effect of rising water on Bangladesh.

We invite you to see this important and informative work online or in the print edition of the New York Times.

kadir van lohuizen's via panam exhibition in san jose, costa rica

NOOR's Kadir van Lohuizen has just launched an absolutely stunning exhibition in La Antigua Aduana gallery, San Jose, Costa Rica for his project, Via PanAm, as part of the Festival Internacional de las Artes.

To complete the project, Kadir traveled from Puerto Toro, Chile, the southernmost human settlement in the Western Hemisphere, to Deadhorse, Alaska, a journey of about 28,000 kilometres in 40 weeks.

You can also enjoy the interactive project from home by downloading the Via PanAm iPad application. But if you are in the San Jose area, it's definitely worth checking out his work up close and in person! The exhibition runs until April 13th, 2014.

Images by Kadir van Lohuizen.