Muhammad Salah Abdulaziz is a Sudanese photographer and curator based in Berlin. Abdulaziz’s artistic process is intuitive and responsive to his surroundings, allowing chance encounters to guide his artistic choices. He synthesises various components into larger bodies of work, maintaining a slow pace of examination that fosters intimate engagement with explored themes. His photography often examines cities, relationality, and the organisation, distribution, and experience of spaces both physical and psychic. He holds a B.A. in Linguistics and an M.A. in African Verbal and Visual Arts, specialising in curatorial studies and media in Africa. His academic background both; informs and influences his practice.
Muhammad Salah Abdulaziz
Sudan
ما بين النيلين - Between The Niles
Between the Niles is a long-term autobiographical body of work that begins with a question: where does the “I” end and the city begin, and vice versa? Situated within the distinctive tripartite topography of Khartoum, comprising Khartoum, Bahri, and Omdurman, the project implicitly acknowledges the city’s unique genesis. The landscape, with its spatial configurations and politics of placement, mirrors this complexity, examining layers of human experience etched into its urban form.
A recurrent theme, and a significant point of contention within this visual discourse, is the pervasive, often subtle yet undeniably invasive presence of militarism that has both shaped and encroached upo Khartoum’s urban spaces. This omnipresent force speaks to deeper socio-political structures impacting daily life and spatial dynamics. The project further ponders the convergence of death and space, examining how social, economic, political, and cultural forces ceaselessly sculpt, and are simultaneously sculpted by, the metropolis, shaping both individual destinies and collective experience.
The recent Sudanese revolution marks a critical, transformative juncture in this artistic journey. This period profoundly impacted the author’s perspective, acting as a crucible for new insights and reorienting the trajectory and thematic depth of the work.
Throughout this project, photography is employed as a medium for visual prose and poetry, a mode of observation and notation.