Trigger #6 Assemblies - VOORVERKOOP - LAUNCH 8 november 2025
Trigger: A publication for reflection on photography by FOMU, published by Fw:Books
Assemblies brings together photographs, essays, and archival material that reimagine what socio-political gatherings are, could be, or might become across the SWANA region.
Guest edited by Taous Dahmani, the book features contributions from artists and writers including Rabih Mroué, Hoda Afshar, Myriam Boulos, Larissa Sansour, Maen Hammad, Hajer Boubaker and many more.
The project began as an exhibition curated by Dahmani for the Kamel Lazaar Foundation / Ibraaz at Jaou Tunis 2024, and now comes full circle with the book’s launch at Ibraaz’s new space in London, 8 November 2025.
What does it mean to gather when gathering is the last thing left to do?
Assemblies is a collection of photographs, images, and personal essays that reimagine what socio-political gatherings are, could be, or might become.
Moving across the SWANA region (Southwest Asia and North Africa), the book traces the many shapes of coming together—protest, ritual, informal circles, fleeting encounters—to reflect on what remains, and what comes after..
Guest edited by Taous Dahmani, Assemblies takes its cue from her conviction that life is politics, and politics is life.
In SWANA, the insurrectionary spirit is carried from generation to generation—protest placards become heirlooms, and opposition a way of life. Against the backdrop of uprisings, diasporas, and daily acts of resistance, this book asks what it means to assemble: not as a cliché, but as a radical form of agency.
Contributors include Rabih Mroué, Ala Younis, Hoda Afshar, Myriam Boulos, Céline Semaan, Farah Abdessamad, Didem Pekün, Larissa Sansour, Jumana Manna, Khaled Barakeh, among many others.
Their essays and visual works are joined by an extensive archive section, with contributions from Mashid Mohadjerin, Joyce Joumaa, Tashattot, Mahassen Nasser-Eldin, Arab Image Foundation, Ferhas Publishing Practices, Nadine Nour el Din, and more—mapping a deeper history of gatherings that resists spectacle and celebrates research.
This is the first volume of Trigger in its new format. No longer a magazine, but an annual book,
Trigger launches with a renewed mission: to provide a platform for voices beyond the museum’s networks. Rooted at FOMU – the museum of photography in Antwerp (Belgium), Assemblies emerges from dialogues that stretch across borders, languages, and generations.
The project began as Assembly, a group exhibition curated by Dahmani for the Kamel Lazaar Foundation / Ibraaz during Jaou Tunis 2024. It now comes full circle: Trigger 6: Assemblies will be launched on 8 November 2025 at Ibraaz’s new space in London, marking both the continuation of this collaboration and a new chapter for Ibraaz itself.
At its heart, Assemblies is about the politics of coming together—in streets, stadiums, kitchens, and cafés; in rituals, archives, and fleeting encounters. It is about protest as a form of life, and about imagining other ways of living, despite it all.
Editor: Tom Viaene for FOMU in collaboration with guest editor Taous Dahmani
Publisher: Fw:Books
Concept: FOMU – Antwerp
Format: Softcover, 17 × 24 cm
Pages: ca. 320
Language: English
Publication date: November 2025
Launch: 8 November 2025, Ibraaz (London), 14 November 2025, Le Bal (Paris) & March, FOMU (to be confirmed).