Portrait of Marwan Bassiouni. Photographed by Yusuf Zucchero.
Lawrie Shabibi is pleased to announce the representation of Marwan Bassiouni in the Middle East and North Africa, an addition to the gallery’s growing roster of international artists. Based in the Netherlands, Bassiouni is known for his contemplative photographic practice that explores the intersection of Islamic identity and Western culture, often articulated through large-scale, immersive photographic installations.
Born in 1985 in Morges, Switzerland to Egyptian and American parents, Bassiouni’s transnational background forms the bedrock of his artistic vision. He studied photography at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague and received a CFC in photography from the Photography School of Vevey (CEPV) in Switzerland. His practice is characterised by a quiet precision and conceptual rigour, drawing viewers into an inquiry around place, perspective, and belonging.
Bassiouni’s work often functions as a visual meditation on Islamic presence in the West—his photographs capturing mundane interiors that open onto vast landscapes, subtly reconfiguring expectations of cultural representation. Through a combination of documentary and constructed aesthetics, his practice resists binary framings of East and West, instead revealing the porous, lived realities of diasporic experience. His images invite a slower way of seeing, one that foregrounds introspection, spiritual nuance, and the political significance of everyday space.
His central body of work, New Dutch Views, exemplifies his approach. The photographs are taken from within Dutch mosques, framing the surrounding landscapes through windows and thresholds. These compositions establish a quiet dialectic between the interior and exterior, faith and civic life, tradition and modernity. The series was published as a photobook in 2019 and was shortlisted for the Aperture First Book Award at Paris Photo.
"In my work, I explore the concept of landscape while questioning how Islam has been perceived and represented in contemporary Western society. In traditional Western imagery, the ‘East’ is often depicted as the subject of a Western gaze. New Western Views shifts this perspective, making the West the subject of observation from within an Islamic context that is itself part of the West. For over five years, I have travelled across several countries, seeking views from inside mosque prayer rooms. The resulting large-scale photographs offer a distinct perspective, capturing the subtle details that shape the unique character of each interior and its surrounding landscape. I’m truly looking forward to presenting part of New Western Views at Lawrie Shabibi, for the first time in the Middle East." – Marwan Bassiouni.
Bassiouni’s work has been widely exhibited at major institutions including the Kunsthaus Zürich (2023); Kunstmuseum Den Haag (2024); Foam, Amsterdam (2022); Museum Schloss Moyland (2023); the International Center of Photography, New York (2024); Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam (2020); and the Shanghai Center of Photography (2022), among others. He has participated in international photography festivals and fairs including Unseen Photo Fair (2019), Art Düsseldorf (2023), and Festival Circulation(s), Paris (2020).
His work is held in the permanent collections of the Kunsthaus Zürich; Kunstmuseum Bern; the Netherlands Photo Museum; Kunstmuseum Den Haag; and the International Center of Photography in New York. Bassiouni is also the recipient of several notable accolades, including the W. Eugene Smith Student Grant, the Harry Pennings Prize, and the Prix Circulation(s)–Fujifilm. Since 2020, his practice has been generously supported by the Mondriaan Fonds.
July 21, 2025
