Seeing Ourselves presents a selection of photographic works created by Emirati students from Zayed University through a collaboration with Bassam Freiha Art Foundation. Developed during a residency with French photographer Philip Ducap, the exhibition brings together photography, curatorial practice, and graphic design, forming a visual narrative shaped entirely by the students themselves.
Unfolding through themes of architecture, landscape, portraiture, memory, and identity, the exhibition reflects the complexities of living between tradition and modernity in the contemporary United Arab Emirates. Through images rooted in personal experience, the works explore how people relate to the spaces they inhabit and the histories they carry with them.
The exhibition’s strength lies in its collective voice and diversity of perspectives. Organised across thematic sections including This is my Journey, Of Identity, Reflections, Human Intervention, and Before Me, Her, before Her, Her, the works create a dialogue between past and present while revealing the realities of a generation documenting its own time.
Conceived as a direct counterpoint to Bassam Freiha Art Foundation’s Orientalist collection, Seeing Ourselves places Emirati students in the position of authorship. It is an invitation to encounter the UAE through the eyes of those living it today and to engage with emerging voices shaping the future of artistic expression.
