Searching for the border between Europe and the Orient by Frederic Lezmi (November 25, 2009) 
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Curator Statement by The Black Snapper
I like the way Frederic questions the notion of cultural differences very much. Being half Lebanese, Frederic's approach seems to be one of looking for similarities, instead of differences. The 'road movie' feeling of this project strongly supports this vision. We are slowly taken from a Vienna car park entrance to a Ferris wheel in Beirut. Along the way we are given time to contemplate how different we really are if we dare to come close.
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Our poll "A photo essay always needs a great written story" closed. 267 people voted, 28% agrees, 72% disagrees. 233 people answered our follow-up question "Are you a photographer?" 82% indicated they are, 18% said no. Initially, negative answers to question #1 were almost 100% as was the pecentage of photographers among respondants. Then, when the level of non-photographers started to rise, the percentage of people indicating good text is always essential started to rise too. This seems to indicate that non-photographers think that adding good text to your photo essays is essential. In my opinion: if you want non-photographers to dig your work, you know what to do...
For the purpose of my latest project, I have been searching for the „in between” – whatever lies, geographically as well as culturally, between my world here in the midst of Europe and my long term focus of interest in the Middle and Near East.
From August to December 2008 I was „en route” between Vienna and Beirut. During my travel, I encountered people in versatile worlds, inside or in front of architectural places, both real and artificial, public and private. In my photographs, people emerge either as just passers-by or while waiting, as subjects and objects of the viewer’s eye, moving about in their urban or rural environment. These are distanced views in which locals and tourists are on their paths, randomly congregating and forming elusive compositions.
These pictures represent neither precise documents nor do they create artistic worlds. They rather mean to be constructions of multicolored, fragmented impressions, like looking through a kaleidoscope. I often show architectural monuments, including the social life taking place within, in various superimposed layers and conditions.
Through reflections and fragmentations within the images, the viewer’s eye is being multiplied, inverted and divided in order to put on trial and call in question the perception of cultural differences and their importance for the “present” and the “past” of our society. Photography as such turns out to serve as a visual hinge and an interface between these multi-faceted worlds where the space between East and West is either expanded or reduced. Where the West does end? Where does the Orient begin?
Frederic Lezmi (1978) lives and works in Cologne, Germany.
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Posted in category 652
Being stuck somewhere between east and west myself, part of both and none, and having travelled most of that road many times (long time ago…before my photographing days :-) ), this work kind of blends into my own life…
So, a personal thanks… :-)