Background
He was born and raised in Beirut during the Lebanese Wars and immigrated to Canada right before the 2006 war.
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Johnny Alam
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His art and research revolve around questions of memory, technology and representation with a special interest in photography, history and war. Alam curated the research-exhibition "Art on a Green Lincolnshire" at Carleton University Art Gallery between January 19 - April 14, 2015.
Inspired by one of his professor"s collage techniques, Alam developed a theoretical framework to create a series of documentary paintings titled "Timeline Series" in which he transfers photo emulsion and print pigments onto his painted canvases.
The series borrows from historical and video editing timeline forms to create mixed media artworks.
In another series titled "Ephemeral Commemorations", Alam photographs several roadside commemorative installations by the friends and families of the victims of car accidents. Beyond painting and photography, Alam has experimented with video and film through the Independent Filmmakers Cooperative of Ottawa.
Peter Simpson from the Ottawa Citizen wrote: "The Green Lincolnshire separated two armies, each fighting the other while jockeying for position on their own sides. Nowhere is the line more viscerally rendered than in Alam’s map of Beirut in the 1920s, shortly after the League of Nations’ contentious creation of Lebanon from the vestiges of the Ottoman empire.
On Alam’s map the Green Lincolnshire runs through the city like a surgical scar, the two sides held together by thick thread.
The Green Lincolnshire is more vaguely referenced in the work of artists from diasporic communities, who are further removed from the specific site of conflict. Alam explains that “the sectarian language that expresses the memory of the Lebanese wars is neither tolerable nor comprehensible within nations such as Canada”." Writing for the L"Hebdo Magazine Beirut, Pauline Mouhanna concludes: "En fait, Alam explique qu’il a essayé de montrer comment «ces œuvres variées nous aident à nous souvenir et, peut-être, commémorer les guerres au Liban».
