Hannah Bartos
foreign matter
'Foreign matter' is an ethnographic research project that results from a 4-year period of immersive fieldwork in Qatar. An inquiry grounded upon interviews and archival research.
This body of work encompasses images, audio, video and sculptural installation.
Centred upon religious worship amongst migrant communities in the Middle East, it touches upon narratives of globalisation, differentiation and visibility.
Images focus on the area in and around ‘Church City’ in Qatar – a tiny ghetto of worship that sits on the edge of the desert. Hundreds of thousands of Christians migrants regularly descend upon this bounded area measuring just 500m by 200m.
A vibrant religious life goes on behind closed doors. From the outside, much is hidden from public view and goes unseen as religious activities, dress and symbols are permitted solely within its confines.
A sense of the attendant process of ‘revealing’ and ‘concealing’ is captured through a body of images alongside a series of 3D installations. These are comprised of documentary images UV-printed onto acrylic panels that are laser cut into intricate geometric patterns of traditional 9th century Islamic design.
By departing from figurative aesthetics, the spectator is compelled to assume numerous viewing points to locate and uncover the underlying forms obscured by the multi-dimensionality of the image. The disrupted literal forms imparting a sense of the ‘hiddenness’ attendant to these religious spaces.
Foreign Matter shares part of the story of migrant works that has been almost entirely overlooked. Beyond the building sites, office cubicles and living compounds, religious communities offer a base of support to those who find themselves detached from familial support systems. The work pushes back against reductive portrayals of migrants and counters tropes that deem them powerless and lacking in agency.
A truly unique place, it is an island of Christianity in the sand virtually unknown to the world.
British Journal of Photography
Issue 7923 (2025)
Seeking to depict patterns of human interaction,
the project articulates a mass movement of people who
navigate the socio-cultural heritage of their temporary home.
