Years in the making, Cold Cuts’ fourth edition, titled Treat Me Like Your Mother: Trans* Histories from Beirut’s Forgotten Past, was recently launched. Celebrating the stories and lives of trans* women, the journal is also available online for free in an active effort to make this public archive accessible to everyone. It brings together photographs of the trans* community in Beirut in the 1980s and the 1990s, which are now in the custody of the Arab Image Foundation in what is arguably the first such photographic archive of the queer community in the Arab region. Housed at the Arab Image Foundation, the Cold Cuts collection brings together 206 prints and polaroids which Cold Cuts founder, Mohamad Abdouni, entrusted to the foundation in 2021.

In this informal gathering at our premises, Abdouni and AIF collections researcher Omar Thawabeh discuss the challenges and intricacies of documenting this valuable collection, and the ways in which language and imagery can be used to embolden communities.

Kindly note that the conversation will take place mainly in Arabic.

Treat Me Like Your Mother: Trans* Histories from Beirut’s Forgotten Past will be available for purchase on the day of the talk.

This conversation is taking place in the framework of the AIF's International Archive Week programme.

Cover image
Group snapshot featuring Em Abed in Kfar Helda. Taken by an unidentified photographer in 1995 in Tannourine, Lebanon. Chromogenic process print, 10.1 x 15 cm. 0305cc00097, 0305cc – Cold Cuts collection, courtesy of the Arab Image Foundation, Beirut.