Photo: D.K.
Gui Mohallem (1979), a Brazilian artist of Lebanese heritage, is known for his experience-based and implicated works. He started off as a photographer and through the years has expanded his practice into video, sculpture, installation, and social practices. His work is founded on the processes of subjectification and estrangement inherent in the notion of ‘’displacement,’’ which in his work applies to exiled communities, queer identity, and ethnographic methodologies as much as to formal experiments with material and image-making techniques. In recent years, his artistic practice has been intertwined with his political activism, especially regarding queer identities and other minorities. He is the cofounder of two intersectional NGOs for human rights in politics.
The holder of a degree in film and video from ECA-USP [the School of Communications and Arts, University of Sao Paulo), Mohallem had his first solo show in New York City in 2008. Since then, he has had showings at various galleries and museums in Brazil. He has also exhibited in the US, Iceland, Estonia, and Spain. He has two books out, Welcome Home (2012) and Tcharafna (2014). He was recently selected for the 21st SESC_Videobrasil Biennial with his work with the collective #VoteLGBT. He is a speaker at Brazil’s leading photography festivals, and his works are in major private and public collections.