One of Bahrain’s popular art movements is back with its ninth season and is set to offer enthusiasts an immersive cultural experience.
Photos à la Chair, the interactive pop-up by Bahraini architect Ali Karimi and resident Lebanese-Canadian photographer Camille Zakharia, will stage its next edition featuring yet another unique set-up at Karbabad beach today from 2pm to 5pm.
The idea behind the event, which is open to all, is for people to get their photographs clicked, as well as interact with the artist, or simply enjoy being a spectator.
A past event outside the Bahrain National Museum
The duo have collaborated with visual artist Eman Ali for the upcoming session. Her work ‘investigates the shifting relationships between visibility and erasure, intimacy and distance, and history and the present’ and her creation’s span photography, artificial intelligence, sculpture, text, installation and sound.
Ms Ali
Ms Ali is based between Bahrain, Oman and Kenya, and has been recognised for her work, being shortlisted for prestigious photography awards such as the Foam Paul Huf Award (2013), the European Photo Award (2016), and the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize (2018).
More recently, she was nominated for the C/O Berlin Talent Award in 2024 and shortlisted for the Prix BMW Art Makers Awards in 2023. In 2020, she received recognition as a Single Image winner at the British Journal of Photography’s Female in Focus Awards.
Eman Ali was commissioned to create a photographic essay for the Bahrain’s national pavilion, ‘Heatwave’, that was awarded the Golden Lion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Her work has been showcased in fairs, biennales, and exhibitions across Africa, Asia, Europe and America.
In Abu Dhabi last year
“I’m excited to collaborate with Photos à la Chair on their 30th edition and have supported the initiative since its early days,” Ms Ali told the GDN. “It has been really nice to see how much it has grown and how connected the community feels to it,” she added.
“In my art practice, I am interested in small disruptions that shift our sense of what is real – like the strangeness that hides in plain sight. That feeling of something familiar becoming slightly off is a tension I like to lean into, and it is what I will be creating for my edition through the everyday object and the specific site I have chosen for the scene.”
In Saudi Arabia last year
In the past, Photos à la Chair has collaborated with creatives of various backgrounds, bringing together individuals from different walks of life and giving the community an inclusive platform to connect with art and each other.
“Eman is a promising artist and it gives us a great pleasure to collaborate with her and see what she has to offer for our upcoming edition. We are confident it will be an engaging and thought provoking project,” Mr Zakharia noted.
Photos à la Chair’s first session was staged at Al Riwaq Art Gallery’s The Nest event – which is often credited with making art ‘more accessible to the community’.
The idea behind the project is to get people talking about art in a casual environment instead of a formal set-up such as a gallery and also promote beautiful locations in Bahrain, founders Mr Karimi and Mr Zakharia highlighted.
While the pop-ups are primarily based in the kingdom, they have attracted visitors from other Gulf countries, as well as hosted sessions regionally, including in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
“We’re always up for doing travelling sessions when it makes sense,” Mr Karimi added.
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