Raed Asfour presents a series of photographs in his first exhibition of "Barbed Wire" cutting through the Arab world and beyond. The idea for this project developed in 2012 in Tunisia. He took the first photograph of barbed wire during one of the protests, when the police set up a wire barrier to prevent the protesters from getting to the main areas of the capital. Afterwards, he started noticing and taking photographs of barbed wire in other countries around the world. These wires have been mostly set up for the same purpose: placed for protection, or segregation, or prevention, but they are always a result of fear. They distort one’s vision, and cut through the beauty of the earth.

"Wretched are the wires that prevent connections, encounters, and life

Wretched are the wires that splinter vision, cut stories short of completion, turning them into grey and sad remains...

The killer puts them up as protection from his murdered victim... The bully, shivering with fear, believes they can protect him from the weak, while the occupier plants them in the ground to protect himself from the rightful owners of the land...

Many hands, large and small, have bled on these wires that cut many a lover's veins...

Oh wretched wires: you break the wind as it infiltrates you! You pathetic shackles of cold dark night imprisoning this beautiful earth; what sordid wound inflicted on the rays of the sun are you!"

Raed Asfour