The TAG series is posing a question to the past in a very contemporary familiar language of tagging. The photos, also archival pre dating 1948, show faces and bodies that seem to be inhabiting their native landscapes, but that almost ornament them rather than pose a physical presence. The act of tagging that Harb introduces is both an effacing and an affirming act. It is worth noting that, during iconoclastic periods in Ottoman times, a line was added onto the neck of the figure in miniature paintings as to annul any animate affect. Thus Harb's work is not only a nuanced affirmation of the presence of people in that landscape, but is also a question about contemporary ways of self-legitimation and archival tendencies on social media and the internet. 

The inspiration for this series of portraits is the traditional Mashrabiya. A tooled wooden screen traditionally used to separate the private and public spaces in Islamic Architecture. The labor intensive process involves etching the surface of large format negatives by hand thereby applying/removing said “screen” directly to the portrait, calling into question both the idea of portraiture and photographic space. The works are an exploration of many things. They revel in the ‘in between’; photography and drawing, public and private space, representation and abstraction, obscuring and revealing. Weather they transcend or trespass, these are about the lines we draw, and the spaces in between.

The inspiration for this series of portraits is the traditional Mashrabiya. A tooled wooden screen traditionally used to separate the private and public spaces in Islamic Architecture. The labor intensive process involves etching the surface of large format negatives by hand thereby applying/removing said “screen” directly to the portrait, calling into question both the idea of portraiture and photographic space. The works are an exploration of many things. They revel in the ‘in between’; photography and drawing, public and private space, representation and abstraction, obscuring and revealing. Weather they transcend or trespass, these are about the lines we draw, and the spaces in between.

The inspiration for this series of portraits is the traditional Mashrabiya. A tooled wooden screen traditionally used to separate the private and public spaces in Islamic Architecture. The labor intensive process involves etching the surface of large format negatives by hand thereby applying/removing said “screen” directly to the portrait, calling into question both the idea of portraiture and photographic space. The works are an exploration of many things. They revel in the ‘in between’; photography and drawing, public and private space, representation and abstraction, obscuring and revealing. Weather they transcend or trespass, these are about the lines we draw, and the spaces in between.

Photography primarily operates on light as an image is processed the way the eyes perceive things. It is from this principle in which the camera obscura functions and all other similar devices work - light is passed through the pinhole of a dark chamber thence an image is projected through several layers of lens and reflected back on a photo-sensitive surface.

It is from this principle that Poklong’s work Anonymity is based. Although the work involved taking photographs of groups or individual people, nonetheless it became a picture of light as their identities are erased by light reflected by the mirrors they are holding. The group or individuals thus appearing as a constellation of flashes. Hence, the work is an inversion of a photographic genre (portraiture) and an exploration for true photography, which is capturing light.

The piece is comprised of photographic images displayed with an array of light-boxes.  In creating the images, Poklong enlisted the participation of friends, acquaintances, and strangers to pose with a circular mirror held in front of their faces, reflecting the blinding glare of the sun directly towards the camera lens.  The heads of these ‘subjects’ exploded in a corona of light, with their clothes, bearings, and background settings as the only legible markers of who they might be.

“The image is grainy and overexposed, its detail is, ironically, apparent in its shadows and darker areas. The anticipated process of illumination and revelation never occurs, the result speaking instead to concealment and the absence of knowledge. Presenting this image on a lightbox, the artist magnifies further the instability of the photographic surface, as this format speeds up the degeneration of the image over time.” – June Yap, Curator for South and Southeast Asia, Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative

A previous work from this series, Counter Acts (2004) has been acquired by the Guggenheim Museum, NY.