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‘Met by the Ocean’ marks the first collaborative art initiative for emerging visual storytellers in Yemen. The initiative connects the Yemeni art scene with the art scene in the Netherlands by pairing up three Yemeni artists with three Dutch artists, whose artistic practices represent a rich range of mediums ranging from painting, photography and writing to design and film. Through intimate correspondences with each other, the artists explored the intricacies and opportunities of engaging in an collaborative storytelling approach with an artistic peer thousands of kilometers away.
The project is initiated and led by Yemeni artist Thana Faroq based in the Netherlands, who mentored the artists to create a playful, engaging and experimental artwork that responds to the notion of ‘ Home’.
Met by the Ocean was funded by the Dutch Embassy in Yemen.
Thana Faroq is a Yemeni photographer and educator based in the Netherlands. She works with photography, texts, sound, and the physicality of the image itself as a way to respond to the changes that have been shaping and defining her life and sense of belonging both in Yemen and the Netherlands.
Thana's positioning as a photographer is informed by her reflections on her subject matter, tuning in to other people’s lived experiences with which she continually grows familiar. She also increasingly seeks her own story in the frame.
Amongst her many honors, Thana was a recipient of the 2018 inaugural Open Society Foundation Fellowship Grant and Exhibition and the 2019 Arab Documentary Fund supported by the Prince Claus Fund and Magnum Foundation and Zenith magazine reporting grant. She is also the winner of foto_win photobook award 2022.
Thana received her BA in Government and International Relations from Clark University in the US, She also completed her MA in Photography and Society at The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK ) Currently, she teaches there.