Treat Me Like Your Mother
Mohamad Abdouni
Cold Cuts
English and Arabic
Edited by Joy Stacey and Rayyan Abdelkhalek
Softcover
285 pages
240 × 310 mm
2022
This special edition issue of Cold Cuts is a public archive that compiles personal photographs and bilingual oral histories from ten trans* women that recount their lives through the civil war in Lebanon as well as the years that followed.
Compiled by Mohamad Abdouni and co-edited by Joy Stacey and Rayan Abdel Khalek, It pays tribute to trans* women and femme men who have been largely erased from Beirut’s history, drawing visibility to an extraordinary community that has long been pushed to the shadows.
The women tell the story of a city that is now lost, of war, survival, love, balls, parties, families, beaches, abuse, and jail. The project shows an unprecedented history of queer communities in Beirut, and aims at affording our elders overdue respect, visibility, love and kindness.
This issue was made possible with support from the Arab Image Foundation, Mophradat, Studio Safar, The Norwegian Embassy, Helem and Station.
(Source: https://www.coldcutsonline.com/shop/p/treat-me-like-your-mother-e-book)
About the Artist
Mohamad Abdouni is an artist, photographer, filmmaker and curator based between Beirut and Istanbul. He is also Editor in-Chief and Creative Director of COLD CUTS magazine, the photo journal exploring queer cultures in the SWANA region.
His work has been exhibited namely at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the FOAM Gallery in Amsterdam, L’Institut du Monde Arabe and the Institute of Islamic Culture in Paris, Patel Brown in Toronto, Photo Arles and the Lyon Biennale amongst others.
Mohamad’s films have been screened and awarded at festivals such as Eyes Wide Open and the Leeds Queer Film Festival in the UK, IQMF in Amsterdam, The Brooklyn Museum and Woodbury LGBTQ Film Festival in the US, and Pink Apple Schwullesbisches Lesbian & Gay Film Festival in Switzerland among others.
Commercially, he has shot for and directed narrative fashion films and music videos with the likes of Gucci, Vogue US, Vogue Italia, Burberry, Puma, The New York Times, Slate, Fendi, Farfetch, GQ, King Kong, Dazed, Another, Nowness, Vice UK and L’officiel.
His personal endeavors tend to focus on the untold stories of Beirut and uncovering the rich yet eradicated queer histories of the Arab- speaking region through several documentaries and photo stories that have been featured in publications from A24, Telerama, Foam Magazine, Tetu, New Queer Photography, Kaleidoscope, i-D, Photoworks, The Guardian, Facebook and more.
As of late he has dedicated his time to working on what is arguably the first archive of trans* histories in an Arab country, a project entitled Treat Me Like Your Mother: Trans* Histories From Beirut’s Forgotten Past. The collection resides safely today at the Arab Image Foundation.
https://mohamadabdouni.com
(Source: https://www.marfaprojects.com/artists/32-mohamad-abdouni/overview/)
About the Publisher
Cold Cuts is an independent publishing and visual culture platform founded in 2017 by artist and filmmaker Mohamad Abdouni. It documents queer and oblique cultures across Southwest Asia, North Africa and their diasporas, across photography, film, sound and text. Its definition of queerness extends beyond sexuality and gender to include what is marginal, underground, intimate and often absent from official memory, focusing on subcultures across the region. Cold Cuts works with artists, writers and communities to publish work that is visually bold, politically sharp and rooted in lived experience.
https://www.coldcutsonline.com/
(Source: https://www.coldcutsonline.com/10-year-homepage-1-1)
