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When journalist Issam Abdallah was killed during the Israel-Hamas war in October, the 37-year-old Lebanese Reuters correspondent left behind a legacy of photos and videos chronicling the Middle East. Thirty-three of them will be on view this month in Beaverton as the gallery season opener for the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts.
“He captured the essence of people and humanity—that’s really what his gift was,” says Karen De Benedetti, the Reser’s curator and gallery programs manager.
Images in the show range from the aftermath of a port explosion in Lebanon and an earthquake in Turkey to portraits of Abdallah filming and interviewing sources. Abdallah was killed in southern Lebanon on Oct. 13 by Israeli tank fire and was lauded posthumously for his courage, professionalism, humor and passion for journalism.
De Benedetti recommends that visitors first take a lap through the exhibition just to see the photos, and then a second one to read the accompanying titles and text. One photo that stands out to De Benedetti is of a tired-looking man sitting on a couch. It turns out to be lockdown fatigue during the early days of the COVID pandemic.
The exhibition, Exposed Transmissions: A Photographic Memoir from Issam Abdallah’s Lens, is being held in an unusual location because of the Reser’s ongoing repairs and construction after a sprinkler pipe burst there during the January ice storm. The show will be held in a temporary gallery space two doors down from the Reser on Southwest Crescent Street, in Suite 120 of the Beaverton Central Parking Garage’s retail spaces.
The show will also be open to the public at the Beaverton Night Market on Aug. 17.
GO: Exposed Transmissions: A Photographic Memoir from Issam Abdallah’s Lens shows at Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12695 SW Crescent St., Suite 120, Beaverton, 971-501-7722, thereser.org/gallery. Noon–6 pm Wednesday–Saturday, Aug. 2–17. Free.