Description

Olivia Arthur photographed Dubai between 2013 – 2014 for a project called Stranger, where she imagines a survivor returning to Dubai fifty years later, and what they would see. Through photographs and small anecdotes, the viewer is taken on a journey through a city that is both awe-inspiring and alienating. A city which has grown at breath-taking pace from a population of 90,000 in the 1960s to over 2 million in the current day, and continues to draw people from all over the world with its promise of riches.

For me, part of the power of still photography is the ambiguousness of pictures, the ability to give a hint about a scene or event without being too absolute

Olivia Arthur
© Olivia Arthur | Magnum Photos

Olivia Arthur was born in London and grew up in the UK. She studied mathematics at Oxford University and photojournalism at the London College of Printing and began working as a photographer in 2003 after moving to India, where she was based for two and a half years. “For me, part of the power of still photography is the ambiguousness of pictures, the ability to give a hint about a scene or event without being too absolute,” says Arthur.

Representation and the way we see ourselves are also areas of interest for Arthur, and her work has been shown in publications including The New Yorker, Vogue and TIME magazine among others. Her work has been exhibited internationally and has been included in institutional collections in the UK, USA, Germany and Switzerland.

© Olivia Arthur | Magnum Photos

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