event

Book Launch
Middle East Archive Women

Foam welcomes you to the book launch of Middle East Archive's newest publication: Women/ النساء, a collaborative photography book featuring the work of various photographers from across the Middle East and North Africa and beyond.

The book centres the everyday presence of women in the region, presenting them as individuals rather than symbols. The publication brings together diverse photographic approaches and perspectives. Rather than proposing a single narrative, it foregrounds the plurality and contradictions in women’s lives, allowing each body of work to stand on its own while contributing to a broader collective portrait.

Women/ النساء highlights the role of women in shaping family life, social structures, and cultural memory, while also acknowledging how these roles shift across time and place. It does not attempt to represent all women, but instead creates space for visibility, complexity, and representation.

Foam and the Middle East Archive will continue their collaboration later this year, presenting work in the public space at Mercatorplein in Amsterdam West, as well as at the creative space MAQAM.

Woman in vibrant dress and background
Amizmiz, Marocco. 2025Romaisa Baddar, Khalid Raji
two girls laying in the grass
Mansoura Beqaa Valley, Lebanon. 2022Chiara Wettman
Three women in hijabs and martial arts uniforms stand in a ready stance on a mat in a white room.
Dahuk, Kudistan. 1991Mike Goldwater
Women in vibrant traditional clothing walk through a green field, with hills in the background under a cloudy sky.
Firooz Abaad, Iran. 2009Hossein Fatemi
Firefighter woman
Beirut, Lebanon. 2020Myriam Boulos
Book cover with bold Arabic and English text reading "Women" in black on a white background, with a maroon spine.
Cover Women/ النMiddle East Archive

About the publication

Women/ النساء brings together the work of 72 photographers spanning archival and contemporary collections. Including Myriam Boulos, Farah Al Qasimi, Rania Matar, Tanya Habjouqa, Isabelle Eshraghi, Ed Kashi, Myriam Boulos, Farah Nosh, Nariman El-Mofty, Newsha Tavakolian, Nadia Bseiso, Haneen Hadiy and many more.

The publication includes an introduction by curator Romaisa Baddar, commissioned texts by photographer Yumna Al Arashi and Al Hayya Magazine editor Maya Moumne, and an additional text by writer Haya Hamdallah.

Elderly person in a vibrant pink floral dress sits with a walking cane, wrapped in a patterned headscarf, against a beige textured wall.

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Book Launch
Middle East Archive Women