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Exhibition and Book: Stranger 

June 2, 2015 
by Olivia Arthur 
Magnum Print Room 22 May to 31 July 2015.

This new project by Olivia Arthur takes as its starting point a shipwreck that happened in 1961 and traces the footsteps of a fictional survivor through the modern city.

On 6 April 1961 the MV Dara, a ship carrying passengers between India, Pakistan and the Gulf, sunk just off the port of Dubai. An estimated 238 people lost their lives. But some bodies were never found. Some deaths were never confirmed. And some relatives continue to this day to search for their loved ones.

Could someone have survived? Somewhere on an island in the Gulf? And what would they see if they came to the city now, fifty years later? ‘Stranger’ imagines the journey of such a survivor into the modern city of Dubai. Through photographs and small anecdotes, the viewer is taken through a city that is both awe-inspiring and alienating, that has grown at a breathtaking pace and that continues to draw people from all over the world with its promise of riches. The backbone of this project is the story of the shipwreck, bringing the viewer backwards and forwards in history and acting as a reminder of the fragility and skin-deep nature of the place.

<a href='http://www.magnumphotos.com/Package/2K1HRG6N0QBA' target='_blank'>Click here</a> to see the images from the accompanying book.