<div class="accordion"><div class="accordion-item"><div class="accordion-header"><span class="accordion-title">The Association</span> <img class="arrow" src="/aif_website/web/sites/default/files/expand_more.svg" alt="Expand" width="24" height="24"></div><div class="accordion-content"><p>The Arab Image Foundation is an independent association forging new pathways for photography and image practices...</p></div></div><div class="accordion-item"><div class="accordion-header"><span class="accordion-title">History</span> <img class="arrow" src="/aif_website/web/sites/default/files/expand_more.svg" alt="Expand" width="24" height="24"></div><div class="accordion-content"><p>Mission statements (current/past)...</p></div></div><div class="accordion-item"><div class="accordion-header"><span class="accordion-title">Our Economic Reality</span> <img class="arrow" src="/aif_website/web/sites/default/files/expand_more.svg" alt="Expand" width="24" height="24"></div><div class="accordion-content"><p>Lebanon is on the verge of collapse, experiencing its worst economic and political crisis in recent history, with its currency free falling.</p><p>We are an association that cares for photographs. These photographs, at times intimate, other times historical, but always precious, have been entrusted to us. In Lebanon’s precarious climate , we have been left to invent tactics of self-sufficiency to ensure the survival of the photographs, and the wellbeing of our staff who are their custodians whilst also anticipating and preparing for future catastrophes.</p><p>Every crisis brings anxiety and destruction, but within destruction is the opportunity to rethink structures. Even prior to the crisis, we were aware of the limitations of existing funding models and had been in conversation with our funders to improve and stabilise our funding relations. However, the unprecedented magnitude of today’s crisis has accelerated these conversations. Specifically, we continuously need to rethink our use of ever-scarce electricity and water to ensure the sustainability of our work model; we have also had to rethink our public engagement work in order to maintain agility in the face of perpetual postponements due to being located in a country that is constantly on the verge of war and economic collapse. In order to navigate this reality, we now work in alliance with like-minded institutions, sharing resources and navigating programming together, and we try to convince our donors to commit to multi-year, unrestricted funds, to give us more security and stability in this challenging context.</p><p>At a time when many cultural institutions were closing due to the crisis, and with the limited resources we had, we decided to move to a location that would allow for shared spaces with our peers and be open to the public. We moved from Gemmayzeh to Kantari, a neighbourhood with schools, universities and a public garden, a neighbourhood where people still move around on foot. We wanted to ensure that we could provide an open space, believing that in such difficult times our space should be available to the public, to reflect and organise together, and share resources that are becoming scarcer.</p><p>To make this possible, we negotiated our lease with our neighbours Metro al-Madina, supported each other during the renovations, and continue to share the generator and solar electricity, as well as advice on various concerns. We also reached out to other institutions, such as Dawawine, the Co-operative for Cinema Professionals, Public Works, and Archive Books, to face the dire economic reality together. The result of this collaboration is an auditorium and a specialised common library for visual and performing arts, critical theory, history, feminism as well as urbanism and architecture. We feel that sharing, whether it be knowledge or available resources, is one way of developing ties with other cultural projects, collectives, and institutions. We encourage local community support: volunteering, helping care for the space and library and making small contributions, in-kind or monetary.&nbsp;<br>Click here to know how you can help us develop these collaborations.</p></div></div></div>