This photograph was the hero image from artist Ayman Kaake’s commissioned exhibition at Eltham Library Community Gallery ‘In their names’ which was Nillumbik Shire’s first collaboration with Midsumma Festival. The work is a self-portrait of the artist at Half Moon Bay in which he is covered by and hugs a Prayer Rug. The backdrop is the sea, a significant border between countries. Kaake born Tripoli, Lebanon arrived in Australia 2011. Ayman’s initial works were made without an artist community. As a young queer man in a country where he did not speak the language, he used his camera to photograph mainly himself. Ayman knows the experience of what it is to feel oneself a foreigner & be conflicted in ones identification with home. His works evoke borders - those of governance, culture, sexuality - through water, sand, & objects of ritual. AYMAN KAAKE (he/him) is an award-winning Lebanon-born Australian photo-media visual artist currently based in Melbourne’s inner northern suburbs. He explores diasporic melancholy and the agony of exile through contemplative portraiture and sculptural, styled poses. Ayman Kaake arrived in Australia as a telecommunications engineer graduate in 2011. Enamored by the camera, he lied to his family to pursue his artistic journey – enrolling in secret in visual arts in Melbourne. His many accomplishments include being a finalist at the National Photographic Portrait Prize in 2022 and 2023, a featured artist for PHOTO 2024 International Festival of Photography for the outdoor program, the winner of Midsumma and Australia Post Award 2022, the winner of the Small Work Art Prize at Brunswick Street Gallery 2022, and recipient of Room to Create residency at Collingwood Yards 2020. A book of Ayman’s artworks has been recently published by Tall Poppy Press. Photographic print on textilelgbtqia+, queer, half moon bay, midsumma, lgbtqia+ politics, migration, criminalisation of homosexuality