From Shamoon Zamir, a literature professor at NYU Abu Dhabi, comes a “research archive of historical and contemporary photography from the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA),” designed to be fully accessible to the public. We’re told:
Today, Akkasah: The Center for Photography at NYU Abu Dhabi boasts an archive of 62,000 images from the UAE and across the MENA region – of which 9,000 are already digitized and available online — the only of its kind in the Middle East. These images offer new insights into the history and rapid transformation of the UAE and the broader Arab world. They include historical collections ranging from the nineteenth century to the late twentieth, covering a variety of themes and topics, from early images of the Holy Lands and from the Ottoman Empire, to images from family albums, institutional archives and the history of Egyptian cinema.
You can visit the collection of images here, which is itself divided into a few key areas: Historical Collections, Contemporary Projects, and Photo Albums.
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