Arab Documentary Photography

10 projects from the program’s recently completed 2020-2021 cohort join the rich body of nearly 60 projects produced since the program’s launch in 2014.

In her photo story White Gold, Egyptian visual storyteller Amina Kadous examines, against the ever-changing landscapes and remapping of Egypt, the ways in which Egyptian white cotton production has faded over the years.

Another project from Egypt, Oh Mysterious Nile…Will You Be Immortal! by Roger Anis, documents the river Nile’s multiple layers and colors, illustrating the environmental changes and political conflicts that determine its course.

Moroccan photographer Seif Kousmate offers a different perspective of climate change, with his photo project Waha that explores and experiments with external and organic elements to illustrate, through Eden-like representations, the endangered situation of the Moroccan oases.

Struggles – psychological, economic, social and political – are at the center of the remaining photo projects. In 103: “absent right”, Algerian photographer Ramzy Bensaadi documents the lives, aspirations and dreams of Oran’s bikers.

On his part, Palestinian visual storyteller Maen Hammad takes us, through his project Landing, on a ride to the parallel world of Palestinian skaters, as they resist through skateboarding the layers of domination and violence of the occupation.

Rehab Eldalil from Egypt explores, in her personal project The Longing of the Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken, the meaning of home and belonging in the liminal Bedouin life in South-Sinai.

Three projects by women photographers from Lebanon tackle the struggles of the country through its various constituents: Lara Chahine’s Bless Your Beauty exposes the pressures of Lebanese women in their eternal pursuit of beauty; Tamara Saadé’s Shedding Skin explores the relationship between male public beach goers in Lebanon, the space they occupy, and herself, against the backdrop of sun, sea, and a collapsing country. The third Lebanese photo project, This Is My Home by Myriam Boulos, documents the multiple crises that hit the country since October 2019.

In a similarly personal project, Libyan photojournalist Nada Harib visually narrates her story in Unearth; an intimate recollection of childhood and fear and hope that Libya’s new chapter would reveal beauty.

The ADPP is an initiative that provides support and mentorship to photographers from across the Arab region. The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, the Prince Claus Fund, and Magnum Foundation established the ADPP in 2014 to stimulate compelling work by Arab photographers working across a range of experimental styles of storytelling. The ADPP has embarked on its 8th cycle in 2021 with a new group of 11 documentary photographers from 7 Arab countries, who will soon convene in their first physical workshop in Amman.

See the 2020-2021 projects, and more, at arabdocphotography.org.