Rheim Alkadhi

Of the postcards from my collection, I’ve chosen a few to intermarry variously. There are four characters: a Sudanese ‘Dervish,’ an Egyptian ‘Fellahi,’ a second Sudanese ‘Dervish,’ and a more generally identified ‘Arab.’

The postcards are all from the 1910’s and could safely be called colonial. Colonial photographers, while choosing beautiful faces to look upon, would categorize each — often incorrectly and presumptuously — by race, tribe, nation, and publish their finds as postcards for collectors and armchair anthropologists.

Heretofore unpublished friendships defy the colonial gaze:  they are eager, attentive, long-awaited to my eyes.