Nour Ballout – SAIC Graduate Exhibition 2022

SAIC SHOWS 2022 GRADUATE EXHIBITIONS

Graduates

SAIC SHOWS 2022 GRADUATE EXHIBITIONS

Nour Ballout

Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Photography

Graduate Exhibition One (March)

nourballout.com

Nour Ballout (b. 1993, Beirut) is a Detroit-based interdisciplinary artist and curator. They received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Wayne State University and are currently an MFA candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Nour’s work as a visual artist and curator is rooted in a social practice exploring the concept of home as it manifests within bodies, built environments, and communities. Photographic self-portraiture, collaboration, and space-making intersect in the interpretation and dissemination of their experience coming home to their body and the world as a trans-masculine queer immigrant. By reconsidering the right to look, Nour challenges the paradoxes of representation, access, and privacy.

Nour is the founder of Habibi House, a neighborhood-based community art space and social engagement residency in Detroit, as well as the annual Book + Print Fest at The Arab American National Museum (AANM). They are the recipient of the 2019 Knight Arts Challenge Award, the 2019 Kresge Arts in Detroit Gilda Award, and the 2019 Applebaum Photography Fellowship. Nour has exhibited their work across the United States and participated in several artist residencies including the Ghana Think Tank in Detroit and Flux Factory in New York,

Nour Ballout - Untitled 1464

Untitled 1464, 2020, Photo Print, Transition | Transformation archive, 40 x 60 in.

Nour Ballout - Bré 3453

Bré 3453, 2021, Photo Print, Muslims In North America Series, 40 x 60 in.

Nour Ballout - Untitled 0439

Untitled 0439, 2020, Photo print, etched glass, plexiglass, Transition | Transformation archive, 18 x 24 in.

Nour Ballout - Jude 6

Jude 6, 2021, Photo Print, Muslims In North America Series, 40 x 60 in.

Nour Ballout - For The Male Gaze, I'm Not The Man You Think I am

For The Male Gaze, I'm Not The Man You Think I am, 2020, Photo Print, Transition | Transformation archive, 36 x 24 in.

My work as a visual artist and curator is rooted in a social practice exploring the concept of home as it manifests within bodies, built environments, and communities. Photographic self-portraiture, collaboration, and space-making intersect while I interpret then disseminate my experience of coming home to my body and the world as a trans-masculine queer immigrant. In my most recent works, I overlap space-making with portraiture when I share space with subjects and co-create with them. By reconsidering the right to look; the paradoxes of representation, access, and privacy collide as I pursue the right to love and feel comfortable in my own body.

I break bread with the people I photograph. By sharing domestic space, we build the trust and intimacy necessary to create work that depicts their story. I share the ownership and rights of every image included in the archive with my collaborators. The collaborative methods of creation in this project defy imperialist assumptions of the ownership of images as something that is inherently the photographer’s. Together, we create, communicate, and own our individual and collective narratives.

In 2017, I founded Habibi House, a neighborhood-based community art space and social engagement residency in Detroit. Through this model, I invited artists, curators, and individuals across communities to engage in the process of collectively reimagining home outside of traditional institutional structures. Expanding my practice to encompass the ways I live and love, I invite my communities to become part of my practice, rather than subjects of my practice. Through my practice I strive to produce work that encourages us to question the ethics of the tools we utilize and constantly investigate the assumptions, exploitations, and impact of our mediums.

My current work examines the ways belonging and exclusion overlap in the trans Muslim community. Through photographing myself and other trans Muslims, I navigate the complexities of gender, sexuality, religion, and ethnicity, exploring how built environments and communities—even spaces that seem like home—can systematically negate, challenge, discipline, and surveil trans, brown, and queer bodies.