In ‘Psychic Repair’, the artist examines how digital culture, consumer spectacle and personal memory shape contemporary life, reflecting on photography’s shifting role in an age of surveillance, self-performance and endless image circulation.
At the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, Farah Al Qasimi’s exhibition ‘Psychic Repair’ brought together photography, sound and installation to explore the emotional and psychological conditions of the present. Moving between bedrooms, marketplaces, advertisements and digital spaces, the exhibition considered how intimacy is increasingly shaped by algorithmic systems, and how imagination remains a vital tool for navigating contemporary life. Al Qasimi reflects on photography after surveillance, the politics of self-presentation, the role of contradiction, and how repair begins with asking better questions.
‘Psychic Repair’ explores the hidden forces that shape how we live today, from beauty culture to online life to inherited beliefs. How do you use photography to reveal these forces while still keeping their complexity and mystery?
Farah Al Qasimi: I think people are increasingly distrustful of photography because it’s been adapted to surveil, to flatten and transmit identity about individuals to governments or corporations. Al Qasimi reflects on photography after surveillance, the politics of self-presentation, the role of contradiction, and how repair begins with asking better questions. With this show, I was primarily concerned with how the sacred space of a bedroom becomes infiltrated by algorithmic presence, so I was photographing a lot of people being hidden or camouflaged in their surroundings.
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