I have always felt a connection to the poem "Hell of Halves" by the poet Abdul Wahab Latinus about being caught between two opposites. "Half Black and Also Pink" is a photographic project attempting to archive memories before the war through a lens of strangeness and comparing them to experiences in the country of displacement before starting to adapt and forget them. also, try to document the experiences of the displaced and archive the differences in the forms of utilizing space (inside/outside).
It is an attempt that began with comparison and questioning about the home and the changing city, then moved to question about liberation and civilization and their connection within the society and how their definitions differ according to the context in which a person is placed, and how they are packaged as givens until they constrict and force change. It also attempts to question memory and history and the difference between them, and the impact of war, thinking about space and striving for spatial liberation after the imposition of transition and class inversion.
The experiences of housing and the continuous search for stability, which has become a dream since we became strangers, the impact of the war on the temporal strip, not just the spatial. The fogginess of time, the repetition of daily events (an illusory stability that carries no features of the future), and the continuous fear of any change. The feeling of stagnation or racing with time and others.
Its effect on the distortion of my memory after losing all my inherited and acquired memories and relying on my short-term memory after leaving everything tangible behind. An attempt to reshape another archive based on observing the feeling of difference or similarity before adapting or manipulating memories and forming false ones, which I have already begun to do.
The house started as something fixed for me in Khartoum, then a small bed in a place between borders that can't even be classified, just because it was the last place that gathered us as a family. And now, an apartment I fled to in Cairo where I am not even allowed to paint its balcony wall after owning it. An attempt to convey the experience of living in a house where I own the land, do what I want with it, have my garden, my breathing space, and my sky, to a closed box where I need to renew my judgment and redefine the reasons for my stay every time because I am a heavy guest.
An attempt to build a new life by recognizing and adapting to other cultures, between experiences of living in Sudanese houses where most are ground level accompanied by a wide courtyard and colorful, decorated doors, and most houses with floors are inhabited by the same family. This differs from the experience of living in Cairo with its crowded high-rise buildings, which I call communal living, where you need to be of an upper class to take it off, where you can't even build an imagination about the residents of those apartments because they are all similar under the pretext of form consistency. The class difference and its reflection on the types of housing that shine through those walls.
About the right to the city as the largest shared residence and how the situation has turned from a person shaping the city to the city reshaping the person, and continuously comparing Sudan and Egypt through the memory of its displaced people. According to the words of urban sociologist Robert Park, "The most successful human attempts to reshape the world he lives in according to the desires of his heart. But, if the city is the world created by man, it has become the world he is condemned to live in. Thus, indirectly and without any clear understanding of his mission, in shaping the city, man has reshaped himself."
From this, we delve into questioning the meanings of civilization and liberation, wondering whether, as a person seeks civilization in pursuit of liberation, society unknowingly constrains them, making them think these are their choices, thus losing one freedom to gain another.
"Half Black and Also Pink" came from the crushing of oneself in the pursuit of perfection, seeing one's situation as somewhat black and the mirage as completely pink. In trying to reach that mirage, one finds it not as pink as thought but surrounded by much blackness. Satisfaction and walking with that half to create a better reality that is not perfect but better.
In the middle of the night or the middle of the day;
I try only to be incomplete in everything
To be a half to everything, a half of everything.
Razaz Saif is a Sudanese photographer and a graduate of VII Academy's Program for Narrative and Documentary Practice. Her work explores themes of identity, displacement, and cultural narratives, blending personal storytelling with broader social issues. Razaz has received grants, including the Sudan Visuals 2024 Mentorship and Climate and Change 2021 by TOV Sudan. Her photography has been exhibited internationally, including Postcards from Cairo (2024) at Goethe-Institut Sudan, The Portrait Show in South Africa, and Climate and Change in Germany. Through her lens, Razaz challenges societal norms and captures cultural contrasts, inviting viewers to embrace diverse perspectives and shared human experiences.