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Tarahumara
Bob Schalkwijk

The Sierra Tarahumara is one of the most geographically complex territories in Chihuahua, Mexico’s largest state. Located in the northwest of the country, it borders the United States to the north, with the Rio Grande forming a natural border between the two nations. The Tarahumara is part of the Sierra Madre Occidental, characterized by its high plateaus and deep canyons. The Ralámuli or Tarahumara people were expelled from the valleys, so this region represents a space of cultural and spiritual resistance for them.
Between 1965 and 2015, Bob made seventeen expeditions to the Sierra Tarahumara, and his more than 7,000 photographs constitute an important documentary collection in his photographic archive. Portraits, scenes of daily life, ritual ceremonies, landscapes, and productive activities were captured with Leica and Nikon 35mm cameras, Rolleicord and Hasselblad 120 cameras, and digital cameras. Bob’s passion for the Sierra Tarahumara and its inhabitants was based on respect and genuine admiration that avoided exoticization and directed representations. This photographic corpus offers a unique window into understanding the cultural continuities and transformations in the Sierra Tarahumara over more than half a century, while also demonstrating the author’s great sensitivity.

Date
1 - 30 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
MMAG Foundation

Just before a performance
Jean-Baptiste Humbert

Jean-Baptiste Humbert Jean Humbert (also known as Jean-Baptiste) Born December 8, 1940, France.
In 1955, at the age of fifteen, he enrolled in a classical art school. At sixteen, he was deeply influenced by his discovery of Italian painting. Then, in 1958, he acquired his first 35mm camera and received training in printing techniques in a small darkroom. He studied philosophy, theology, and prehistoric archaeology in Paris.
In 1969, he arrived at the Biblical School in Palestine to practice field archaeology for over fifty years. He discovered the radiant light of the Near East and the richness of the Persian landscapes, where every glance reveals a picture.
He participated in numerous archaeological excavations. He began his career by sketching objects, then moved on to topographical sketches, before eventually managing projects: Acre, Susa in Iran, Jordan (Khirbet al-Samra, al-Fadheen, Mafraq, and the Amman Citadel), and finally Gaza.
Just before a performance Archaeological photography is a delicate discipline; the photographer does not choose their subject, but rather the subject is imposed upon them. Therefore, even in its simplest form, the photograph, which should be merely a photograph, must be transformed into a work of art. It is primarily a composition, like an architectural structure, complemented by the artistry of the painter. The structure of the photograph carries within it a memory, and the viewer absorbs the narrated moment as if it had been taken by chance from a still film.

Date
6 - 30 June
Opening event 5:30 pm
Address
Al Mashini Cultural Center

LIFE GOES ON
Yolanda Andrade

Yolanda Andrade (Villahermosa, 1950) is a Mexican photographer with nearly five decades of experience in documentary and artistic photography. Her work is distinguished by a critical and personal perspective on urban spaces, popular culture, sexual identities, and feminist struggles in Mexico. She worked in black and white photographing Mexico City from 1977 to 2003, transitioning to color and digital techniques after 2003, and extending her projects to cities in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. She studied at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1994, and the Bellas Artes Medal in Visual Arts from the Mexican government in 2024.
The aim of these photographs is to examine street life, urban landscape, nightlife, and popular culture in Mexico, as a continuation of my long-term project on Mexico City that lasted from 1976 to 2002. During that time, I used black and white film, but in 2003, I made the decision to shoot in color using digital cameras.
Mexico is right now going through a complex situation because of violence, femicides and corruption at all levels of civil and government institutions, and through my photographs I want to express the strong resilience of people and their concerns in daily life.
I have also been exploring other issues, such as the relationship between photography and painting, the world of still life and objects and how popular culture transforms high art into vernacular expressions. My work is also a personal reflection on travel and memory.

Date
3 - 30 June
Opeing event 7:00 pm
Address
NOFA creative space

In Quest of Stage Seven (Ershadi)
Ebrahim Alipoor

Ebrahim Alipoor is a Kurdish Iranian photographer and visual storyteller whose work focuses on long-term documentary projects at the intersection of culture, belief, borders, and social resilience. Working primarily with photography and film, his practice explores marginalised communities and the ways faith, tradition, and power shape everyday life. Alipoor has been working on long-term projects across Iran and the Middle East for over a decade, often returning to the same communities over many years. His work is driven by deep field research and close collaboration with his subjects.
His projects have been exhibited internationally and published by major media outlets including Stern, De Volkskrant, Newsweek Japan, and Outside Magazine. He is a recipient of several international awards, including World Press Photo 2025, POY Asia, and the Canon Grand Prize, and was selected for the VII Foundation Mentor Program.
Iranian Kurdistan is a region largely inhabited by Sunni minorities, where Sufism plays a significant role in spiritual and social life. Among the most influential Sufi orders are the Naqshbandiyya, Qaderieh, and Kasanzani, which continue to exist under religious and political restrictions within Iran’s Shia-dominated system.
Followers of the Qaderieh order, known as dervishes, are permitted only one month each year to engage in public religious activities. This period, known as Ershad, lasts thirty days, during which dervishes travel on foot from village to village, spending one night in each place. Through ritual practices and extraordinary acts of devotion, they invite people to the Tariqa and demonstrate a deep spiritual connection to God through dhikr and ritual movement.
The arrival of dervishes is seen as a symbol of blessing and renewal, and communities eagerly welcome them. Ershadi captures this rare journey across the landscapes of Kurdistan, telling a story of devotion, healing, and the enduring bond between the dervishes and the communities they serve. It reflects the power of spiritual unity and the resilience of faith rooted in tradition and collective belief.

Date
1 - 30 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
MMAG Foundation

The life of an Image : “The Gazan Bride”
Eman Haram

Eman Haram (b. in Damascus - Syria) is a Palestinian-Jordanian artist living and working between Montreal and Amman. She completed her studies in Architecture and Art History in the U.S. and spent more than a decade in the design profession, working in New York, Florida, Washington, D.C., and Jordan. After relocating to Montreal, she shifted toward an artistic practice in which photography both as process and as language sits at the heart of her work, harnessed both critically and poetically. Haram’s work meditates on the wounds and trauma that settler-colonial violence inflicts on the land and its native inhabitants. Using photography alongside found objects, archival documents, and ephemera, she creates spaces for witnessing, grieving, re-assembling, and re-imagining what remains in the aftermath of devastation. Haram’s work has been presented in exhibitions, photo festivals, symposia, and events in Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and internationally. She was recipient of MAI ( Montreal Art Intercultural ) mentorship award. Member of Atelier Circulaire print studio from 2009- 2019; L’imprimerie studio, Atelier Fovea (photography collective), and co-founder Um Saad Reading Collective.
The life of an Image : “The Gazan Bride” In my practice, I often begin with the photograph as an act of documentation, but seek to move beyond it, toward the image as a space of evocation a site for the ineffable, for what remains when speech falters and fails us in the face of collapse. The work presented here traces the trajectory of a single image in the making, The Gazan Bride. Studies, visual elements, objects, and fragments of research materials that informed the final image are presented alongside it. Foregrounding process as the work, it reveals the material conditions, questions, and uncertainties that shape the image. This is an invitation to the viewer and to myself to reflect on what an image can hold, what it cannot, and how meaning emerges in the space between seeing, knowing, and fumbling in the dark.

Date
14 - 30 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
MMAG Foundation

Gaza Menu
Mikel Ayestaran Kayed Hammad

Mikel Ayestaran
Born 1975 in Beasáin, Gipuzkoa, is a prominent Spanish freelance journalist and author mainly covering conflict zones in the Middle East. Based in Jerusalem since 2015, he has spent nearly two decades covering major events across the region, including the Arab Spring, the Syrian civil war, and conflicts in Gaza, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is a permanent collaborator for the Spanish newspaper group Vocento (including Diario Vasco, ABC) and the Basque public broadcaster EiTB.
He is part of the founding team of Revista 5W, a digital publication dedicated to international, in-depth journalism. Ayestaran has published several works focused on his experience in the field.
Kayed Hammad
For two decades Kayed worked in Gaza as an interpreter for Spanish media and NGOs. Recently, he was able to be evacuated with his family, and they are starting a new life in Spain. 
“Gaza Menu” represents the shared fight of Mikel Ayestaran and the Hammad family to survive and show the world the embarrassing situation of Gaza and Gazans.
Since October 7, 2023, food became a key element in Mikel and Kayed daily conversations. After asking what Kayed and his family ate every day, they started an Instagram series called “Menú de Gaza,” featuring the dish his wife, Amal prepared every day for the 10 people living under the same roof. Menú de Gaza was a kind of war menu published on Instagram with a short text explaining the details of each dish, life and how things were in Gaza.
Menú de Gaza is a team effort between Amal as chef, Kayed and Dalia and their 18-year-old daughter who handled the photography. In the 15 months between October 7, 2023, and the ceasefire on January 19, 2025, they changed houses 16 times. Amal and her family lost everything, but the most painful loss was when an Israeli bombing took their eldest son Omar. He was 24.
Thanks to Mikel Ayestaran’s continuous help and with the collaboration of the Spanish Ministry for Foreign Affairs (consulate in Jerusalem and the Embassy of Spain in Amman), on June 25 2025, the Hammad family arrived to Jordan to travel to Spain.

Date
6 - 30 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
Al Balad Theater

Beyond the Line | Zemo Nikozi, Georgia
Nurith Wagner-Strauss

Born in Melk, Austria, Nurith Wagner-Strauss studied music pedagogy and completed a concert diploma in Baroque recorder at the Vienna University of Music. A one-year residency in Sudan marked the beginning of her intensive engagement with photography.
She has worked as a freelance photographer since 1987, undertaking regular photographic journeys to India and collaborating with the NGO NISHTHA. Her documentary projects include photo essays on Roma communities in the southern Peloponnese, Syrian refugees in Serbia, children and migrant workers in India, village life in Georgia, and Mongolian nomadic communities.
Wagner-Strauss lives and works in Vienna. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in museums in Austria, Germany, India, and Jordan. Her photographic practice focuses on women and children within their social environments, exploring dignity, resilience, and everyday life across cultural contexts. Zemo Nikozi is a small Georgian village located along the administrative boundary line with South Ossetia. Since the 2008 Caucasus war, this community has lived in growing isolation. A boundary that had once been permeable suddenly became a real and dangerous line: families, friendships, and long-standing economic connections were abruptly cut. Farmers could no longer sell their produce in Tskhinvali, the nearby city across the line. Familiar routes became inaccessible, and everyday life was permanently altered.
The photographs in this series were taken in 2017 and 2018 and 2023. They do not depict the war itself, but focus on how people’s lives continue in its aftermath. The work observes how daily routines persist in a place where normality has been fundamentally reshaped by a profound political rupture.
Within the framework of Behind the Scenes, this project looks at what remains unseen once a conflict has disappeared from the headlines: the long-term social, emotional, and economic consequences of a short war, embedded in gestures, relationships, and the rhythm of everyday life.
Working with a quiet documentary approach based on proximity and trust, the series reflects how people in Zemo Nikozi maintain dignity, work, and social bonds in a place that lies outside the center of attention — yet whose history is far from resolved.

Date
2- 30 June
Opening event 5:00 pm
Address
JODAR Artistry

10 Years After ISIS
Hailey Sadler

Hailey Sadler is a photojournalist, filmmaker, and National Geographic Explorer whose work draws on visual research methodologies to examine themes of home, culture, intergenerational memory, and belonging in contexts of conflict and forced displacement. Her reporting combines in-depth fieldwork with social documentary practice to explore how individuals and communities navigate psychological and emotional connections to place and identity amidst trauma.
Her long-term projects have received support from the National Geographic Society, the Berkley Film Foundation, Getty Images, Adobe, the International Women’s Media Foundation, and the Solutions Journalism Network and have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, PBS NewsHour, and National Geographic among others.
In addition to her journalistic practice, Hailey is cofounder of the Home Collective, a global collaboration bringing together scientists, researchers, community leaders, and storytellers to explore the meaning of home in a changing world. She holds a Master of International Public Policy from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
In 2015, at the height of Islamic State’s power, IS released a video showing the brutal beheading of twenty-one men dressed in orange jumpsuits, lined up on a beach in Libya. The footage sent shockwaves around the world. Among the victims were twenty Egyptian Coptic Christians working in Libya as migrant laborers. As a result, their hometown -- the tiny farming village of Al-Our in the governorate of Minya, Egypt -- was thrust onto the world stage, along with the ten widows and young children who the victims left behind. Over the past decade as headlines shifted elsewhere, these ten women have formed a private sisterhood of support and strength behind the scenes. They find purpose in preserving their husbands’ memories through photographs, personal shrines, and by recounting their stories to thousands of visitors who travel each year to the church built in their honor. Amidst the grief, there are also inside jokes, joint birthday celebrations, and affection, as these ten women from different walks of life find healing in their unique sisterhood born of shared grief. Ten years after this atrocity, this photo essay offers an intimate look at the tender joy, connection, and community that has grown among ten women forever shaped by this tragedy. Their experience provides a lens into the long-term impact of violent extremism as well as the broader vulnerability of religious minorities in the region.

Date
2 - 28 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
ZARA Centre

A-Dios
Marcos Azulay

Marcos Azulay, born in Buenos Aires, is a photographer and educator based in Argentina. His engagement with photography began during his university years as a graphic design student and continued at the National School of Photography, where he completed his formal training. While exploring different forms of visual expression, Azulay’s practice centers on long-term documentary projects. His work engages with themes of vulnerability, resilience, migration, death, and legacy, examining how these experiences shape individual and collective narratives within contemporary social contexts. Since 2021, Azulay has exhibited his work internationally at festivals and biennales and has received awards and grants.
In a culture where we turn our backs on death, seen as a defeat within the medical system and where euthanasia is considered as a potential solution, San Camilo Hospice envisions a society in which no one should face the end of life in abandonment and without comprehensive human care. Established in 2002 San Camilo has become a point of reference for hospice care in Argentina, assisting more than 2000 people with life expectancy of less than six months, and accompanying relatives and friends without any ethnic, cultural or religious discrimination. Inspired by the spirit of Mother Teresa, San Camilo pays special attention for those who lack economic resources or with no family support. Services are free and is supported by donations and free work of 200 volunteers, I made contact with the hospice in 2019 aiming to record and share life stories of people in their final stage of life. A few months later, I began volunteering, activity I still carry out every Monday afternoon.

Date
2 - 28 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
ZARA Centre

Packaged Existence
Mohammed Buhasan

A Bahraini fine art photographer and visual storyteller whose work explores the relationship between people, place, and memory within a contemporary context. Through photography, he creates visual narratives that merge aesthetic sensitivity with human depth, presenting thoughtful reflections on identity, culture, and transformation.
He is the founder and executive partner of Al Waraqoon Publishing, a cultural platform dedicated to art books and visual documentation. Through this initiative, he has contributed to the production of numerous publications focused on heritage, architecture, and cultural storytelling in Bahrain and the Gulf region.
Buhasan is a recipient of several international distinctions, including the prestigious FIAP Gold Medal, and has represented Bahrain in exhibitions and biennials worldwide. His artistic practice centers on environmental and social themes, using photography as a means to question reality and capture moments of quiet significance.
Is a contemporary photographic project that explores the growing tension between humanity and nature in an era dominated by industrial materials and modern patterns of consumption. The work begins with a visual and philosophical inquiry into how plastic—once created for convenience—has gradually transformed into a symbol of isolation, suffocation, and disconnection from the natural world. In this series, human figures appear enveloped in dense layers of colorful plastic, suspended between presence and disappearance. Their identities dissolve beneath artificial surfaces, turning them into abstracted forms that embody a modern condition of alienation. These bodies exist in a quiet state of tension—neither fully revealed nor entirely hidden—reflecting a humanity increasingly confined within the very systems it has created. Set against the vast purity of the desert landscape, the contrast becomes striking. The openness of sky and sand—historically spaces of balance, silence, and elemental clarity—collides with the intrusion of synthetic material. This visual confrontation transforms the desert into a contemplative stage where the natural and the manufactured engage in a silent dialogue.
Here, plastic is not merely a material; it becomes an existential metaphor: a second skin that protects yet imprisons, preserves yet isolates, gradually separating the human body from the living world. Through this symbolic use, the project reflects on the psychological and environmental cost of comfort and excess.
Rather than delivering a direct environmental statement, the work offers an emotional meditation. Through minimal compositions and concentrated symbolism, Packaged Existence invites the viewer to reconsider what we consume, discard, and normalize—and to recognize a deeper human condition quietly longing to breathe again.
In the end, these images are not portraits of bodies wrapped in plastic, but reflections of a broader reality: a packaged existence searching for its way back to life.

Date
3- 30 June
Opening event 5:00 pm
Address
Jacaranda Images

Liminal Spaces
Persia Campbell

Persia Campbell is a photographer and director born in Ciudad Juárez, working across the U.S.-Mexico border. Her staged photography explores female identity and border aesthetics. Her work has been exhibited internationally and published by The Guardian, Vogue, and TIME.
At the international boundary separating Ciudad Juárez, México, and El Paso, USA, spatial and cultural belonging is not fixed but held in a state of indeterminacy. This border operates as a liminal condition rather than a stable geographic division, producing a context in which identity is continuously negotiated and reconfigured. Within this transitional space, subjectivity becomes porous, shaped by the ongoing mediation of language, behavioral codes, and social expectations. Crossing does not simply imply movement between locations; it involves processes of fragmentation and accumulation through which the self is simultaneously altered and reconstituted.

Date
7 - 30 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
Fann Wa Chai

Iron, Breath: Becoming Transient Form
Farah Foudeh

(b. 1991) began working in southern Jordan after returning from Washington, DC, with a BA in International Relations. After several years in tourism development, she pursued an MA in Photography at ELISAVA, Barcelona (2017). She started her photographic career exploring the power structures and dynamics that shape identity and desert communities.
Foudeh’s work traces both internal and external experiences of the desert. Early investigations focused on its masculine structures, while her current practice embraces a feminine gaze, reclaiming observation as a mode of rebellion and return. Guided by phenomenology, she engages the landscape through embodied, sensory experience—slowing down, listening, and witnessing without agenda or intellectualization.
Sound has become a natural extension of her practice. She records environmental sounds, often interacting with stones to explore texture, reverberation, and form. Listening becomes a way of inhabiting the body, reconnecting with sensation and presence. Across image and sound, Foudeh creates work that is intimate, visceral, and liberating—rooted in place and attentive to the subtle dialogues between environment, identity, and memory.
Wadi Rum, the desert in southern Jordan—a place I return to. These returns function as a sustained engagement with place through time. The desert becomes a site of encounter—where attention sharpens and perception unfolds.
Working from a phenomenological position, I allow perception to precede interpretation. Rather than intellectualizing experience, I remain with sensation: stone, wind, heat, water, iron, minerals. These elements are not symbols but presences acting upon the body and the senses.
Through sustained observation, perception becomes an event of transmutation. The meeting of the senses produces a form of knowledge that is embodied rather than conceptual. External processes of erosion, exposure, and transformation begin to echo internally—through breath, weight, and memory.
This work emerges from that space of attention. By allowing the landscape to appear as it is encountered, a deeper understanding takes shape—not only of internal structures, but of their entanglement with broader temporal, material, and collective processes.

Date
1- 30 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
MMAG Foundation

The Silent Occupation
Alexandra Maria Henry

Is a Belgian–Italian photojournalist and filmmaker, a member of the Hans Lucas Agency, currently working between Syria, Italy and France. After studying journalism and environmental studies, she began her photography career while working abroad with various NGOs, before fully dedicating herself to journalism and documentary photography.
Her work focuses on migration, the impact of war on civilian populations and their environment, as well as political and social fractures. Her projects have taken her to Ukraine and South Sudan, before leading her to more extensive work in Lebanon and Syria.
Following the fall of the Assad regime, she spent a year reporting from Syria, where she published photo reports, notably on Syrian prisons and the long-lasting trauma experienced by former detainees. Through photography and film, her work seeks to document sensitive realities and amplify the voices of populations affected by conflict and displacement.

Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, far from the media spotlight, the Israeli army has been quietly intensifying its occupation of southern Syria, in Quneitra governorate. In the demilitarised zone separating the Golan Heights (already illegally annexed by Israel since 1981) from the rest of Syria, civilians live under constant pressure and fear. Israeli incursions have become part of everyday life: daily patrols, arbitrary checks and arrests, land confiscations, and the destruction of homes, while the Syrian army remains unable to intervene in this zone.
This photographic project documents daily life in the province of Quneitra, focusing on the civilians who inhabit this fragile borderland. This photographic work explores how prolonged occupation and repeated incursions have reshaped people’s lives, livelihoods, and sense of security.
Beyond the visible damage to homes and land, the project seeks to reveal the quieter consequences of occupation: the disruption of work, the erosion of social bonds, and the constant tension that permeates daily interactions in a reality that unfolds largely unseen, at the margins of international attention.

Date
2 - 28 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
ZARA Centre

Naza’ (Removal)
Doaa Adel

Doaa Adel is an Egyptian documentary photographer based in Cairo. She received her Bachelor in Mass Communication, Journalism Department from Cairo University. Her work is rooted in documentation as a visual act of preserving memory and resisting the disappearance of places and communities amid rapid urban and social transformations.
Her practice focuses on the relationship between people and place, marginalized communities, and traditional crafts and ways of life that are at risk of fading. She views photography as a living archive and a space for reflection on moments of transition before they are fully realized.
Her work has been exhibited in Egypt and internationally, including in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, India, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and South Africa. Her photographs have also been published in Egyptian newspapers and international agencies such as Getty Images, AP, and AFP.
She is currently working on her long-term project “Naza’ (Removal)”, which documents the transformation of Cairo and seeks to preserve its visual identity at moments of change, before the city reshapes itself.
The city no longer gives itself the time to reflect. In Cairo, the urban landscape is changing at an unprecedented speed, as if places are erased before they can be preserved in memory. What once unfolded slowly now occurs in rapid succession, quiet on the surface, yet profoundly shaping the lives of those who inhabit it.
The project “Naza’ (Removal)” does not approach demolition merely as an urban act, but pauses at what comes before it: the fragile moment when a person’s connection to a place begins to unravel. Tiny details, barely noticed until they vanish, once orchestrated the rhythm of daily life.
“Naza’ (Removal)” begins in Cairo’s cemeteries, especially with large sections being removed—spaces that for decades were an integral part of the city’s architectural and historical fabric, closely tied to neighboring residential areas and everyday life. From this starting point, the project extends to residential neighborhoods threatened by demolition, exploring the transformations that shape the city as a whole, rather than as isolated spaces.
Beyond the cemeteries, “Naza’ (Removal)” listens to a city changing rapidly, block by block, street by street. It is a visual attempt to preserve traces, to stand in that narrow space between what once was and what is taking shape now—before it slips away from memory.

Date
2- 28 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
ZARA Centre

Returning to Nothingness - Syria 2025
Ali Haj Suleiman

A 25-year-old photojournalist living in Damascus, Ali has over 10 years of experience in photography. His work covers social, military, and humanitarian events in collaboration with numerous NGOs, human rights organizations, and local and international media outlets. His work has been recognized and exhibited internationally, and he is passionate about professional development and providing the best content his homeland, Syria, deserves. Ali began using a camera at the age of 14, when he was forced to leave school to help his mother support his family of six after his father was forcibly arrested by the Syrian regime in the third year of the war.
He grew up in the town of Arbin in the Damascus countryside, but at the age of 13, he moved with his mother and siblings to their hometown in the southern Idlib countryside.
The concept of return has always been associated with departure followed by a destination. However, for some, these distances dissolve into confused thoughts between a harsh reality and the illusion of what was once left behind.
Philosophy delves into the anatomy of those who leave and those who return: those who left voluntarily, and those who were forcibly uprooted. Uprooting sounds painful even when the word is applied to a tree; how much more so when it is the uprooting of a soul from its homeland?
When the prisons were opened, the ground and walls were saturated with the traces of those whose lives had been torn away by Assad’s executioners. The uprooting of the soul was not visible, but its weight was present in every breath.
In a car stopped amidst the rubble, someone asks to stop so he can retreat to a corner of a building that no longer exists, simply to weep. The scene was powerful. It happened in devastated Jobar: to retreat to a corner of two walls that no longer exist, yet whose presence you feel, and to soothe your tears in their ruins.
This is what happens to those returning to nothingness, returning to what remains of homes that are no longer habitable. They see imaginary walls that shield them from the cold of the camps. An outsider might not see those walls, but they see them clearly: walls of illusion, hope, and memory. They gather to rebuild a house whose walls have been torn down, but whose folds still hold lingering spirits.

Date
6 - 30 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
Al Balad Theater

Factory of Gods
Rajesh Dhar

A Bachelor of Visual Arts from the prestigious Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata. I am a passionate graphic designer by profession and a photographer by heart. My artistic practice revolves around capturing the vibrancy of India’s cultural and religious diversity, especially focusing on rural festivals and the emotional energy of communal celebration. I believe in showcasing the virtues and flaws of society through powerful visual narratives. My photographic work has received national and international recognition, winning several contests and being featured in global exhibitions and publications.
In the heart of Kolkata, where ‘Durga Puja’ is not merely a festival but a way of life, these images reveal the sacred birthplace of its grandeur, the idol-makers’ workshops of ‘Kumartuli’. Hidden behind the spectacle of illuminated ‘pandals’ and rhythmic drums lay a world where devotion takes shape through clay, patience, and time. This is the true ‘factory of gods’ where divine forms are born from the earth by human hands.
Inside these humble yet vibrant spaces, skilled artisans work with quiet dedication. Their days begin with the careful moulding of clay, starting from the most delicate facial expressions and slowly building toward the majestic presence of Goddess ‘Durga’. Dim lamps cast soft shadows on unfinished idols, while scattered tools and splashes of color narrate stories of generations-old traditions. Every movement of the hand reflects discipline, faith, and an inherited knowledge passed down through centuries. As the idols grow layer by layer, the photographs celebrate more than craftsmanship. They honor the unseen labour, the resilience of the artisans, and the emotional devotion that sustains this sacred practice. Here art and spirituality exist side by side, breathing life into tradition.
Ultimately, the idols come alive as reflections of Kolkata itself its creativity, endurance, and deep emotional bonds. Through this process, ‘Durga Puja’ transcends ritual, becoming a living, breathing celebration shaped by human touch and timeless belief.
In 2021 ‘Durga Puja’ of Kolkata was recognized by UNESCO as an ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity’. This global acknowledgment honors the festival’s living traditions, collective creativity, and its power to unite people across cultures.

Date
1- 30 June
Meet the artist 5:00 PM
Address
Lemon Tree Residence

I Lost Something on My Way…
Abeer Aref

Abeer Aref is a Yemeni artist and architect, a recipient of the Prince Claus Seed Award in 2024 and an alumnus of the VII Foundation. Her photographic practice is rooted in capturing the quiet poetics of everyday life, drawing deeply from her immediate surroundings and cultural context. Through a lens that is both intimate and observational, Aref navigates personal experiences while engaging broader narratives of connection and distance. Her work thoughtfully examines the intersection of culture and identity, the evolving relationship between individuals and their environments, and the ongoing discourse around gender equality. Exhibited extensively across the Middle East and internationally, Abeer’s work has garnered wide recognition. Her photography has been featured in prominent publications, including The New Arab, Middle East Eye, i-D, and Zenith.
Each journey I embark on while reaching my destination also signifies a loss a piece of my identity, my freedom, and my sense of self. This project aims to confront these realities, shedding light on how war not only disrupts physical journeys but also erodes personal self. This project is my journey through multiple travels between Sana’a and Aden, capturing my experiences as I seek a stable future. It reflects the profound longing for my family and homeland, highlighting the emotional landscape of displacement. Through photography, I document the roads I traveled and the obstacles I faced as a woman in Yemen, from navigating the complexities, such as the requirement of a mahram for travel or obtaining travel permits for my travels.
Additionally, it explores how longing evolves into a more complex narrative of transformation, where I transition from a person yearning for his family to return home to someone who travels away from family not only to escape and survive but also in search of a better and safer future.

Date
2- 28 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
ZARA Centre

Fallen Seagulls
Haitam Nsais

Haitham Nsais, born in 1998 in Larache, Morocco.
My journey in photography began in late 2018, when I started documenting the streets of my hometown, Larache its everyday life, traditions, and customs with a particular focus on the city, its people, and their way of living.
My work mainly revolves around photography in public spaces, where I seek to tell stories about our relationship with places and the human connections formed within them Although street photography lies at the core of my practice, I adapt my approach according to the nature of each project and its surrounding context. For me, photography is not merely a tool for documentation, but a means of self expression and an attempt to preserve collective memory, as images have the power to tell stories with depth and honesty.
I have participated in several exhibitions in Morocco and abroad, and I am currently working on developing new photographic projects for the future.
This series documents the forms Islamic practices take in order to survive the American Midwest. The holy month itself amplifies current events in the abstract - through rituals, poetry, and traditional arts. Each year’s commemoration engages with current social and political struggles as much as it does with historical events.
In late 2021, I was in urgent need of a job. I asked my father to let me work with him at the factory where he had spent more than 27 years of his life. This factory was once one of the most famous in the city, thanks to its good reputation during the Spanish administration, when it employed thousands of workers and served as a source of livelihood for many families.
Today, however, everything has changed. The factory stands on the brink of death; only about 25 workers remain. Production is very low, and the workers have no real alternatives. They watch time slip away with bitterness inside its walls, in exchange for meager wages and doubled effort, amid a lack of equipment and a severe shortage of manpower.
I experienced working in this factory for four years, under harsh conditions, yet not without beautiful memories. During this period, I tried to document the lives of the workers under these difficult circumstances, as well as the state of the factory itself as it slowly collapses.
Through this project, I seek to draw attention to the life of the ordinary worker and the impact of work on them, both inside and outside the factory, in our society a repetitive daily routine and a reality that is often met with injustice by those concerned, despite the sacrifices made in silence.

Date
2 - 28 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
ZARA Centre

The Salt Ate Away Her Eyes
Amera Elnaal

Amera Elnaal is a documentary photographer and journalist exploring themes of disability, memory, and identity. As the daughter of blind parents, she uses visual storytelling to amplify overlooked voices and challenge dominant narratives. Her practice blends photography, text, and audio, integrating traditional and experimental approaches. With a background in journalism, she merges storytelling with advocacy, highlighting systemic neglect and resilience. Her work has been supported by regional and international institutions and exhibited on various platforms. Through her lens, Amera documents personal and collective struggles, using photography as a tool for awareness, representation, and social change.
A documentary photography project that intimately traces the lives of my blind parents in Tripoli, Libya. It stems from my childhood practice of narrating the world to them, describing colors, films, and faces, offering them stories in place of sight.
This project moves between tenderness and hardship, between presence and erasure. It reclaims narrative through family archives, emotionally charged imagery, and a visual language rooted in care and remembrance.
The Salt Ate Away Her Eyes opens a window onto the beauty, injustice, and dignity that intertwine in the everyday lives of those who live unseen.

Date
2 - 28 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
ZARA Centre

DOT
Ahmed Alabbadi

Ahmed Alabbadi is a visual artist and photographer born in Aden, Yemen, where he lives and works. His artistic practice focuses on transforming intangible human emotions and experiences into expressive visual forms, addressing themes of mental health, identity, and freedom of expression.
He has participated in several local and international exhibitions, including Sawarah (Aden, 2021), Do You See Me? (New York, 2023), and Closer To Home (Manama, 2025), which emerged from his art residency at Alriwaq Art Space (2024–2025). He was also awarded the Single Image Prize at the Tasweer Festival (Doha, 2024).
Is an artistic documentary photography project that narrates a personal story and sheds light on a medical condition known as hereditary macular edema, one of the rarest diseases affecting the retina. To date, there is no complete cure for this condition. It causes progressive damage to retinal cells, resulting in the total loss of central vision and the appearance of a dark spot or point -known as scotoma- at the center of the visual field. This leads to significant challenges in focusing on details, reading, photographing, close observation, and many other aspects of daily life.

Date
2 - 28 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
ZARA Centre

LFRIG: Tent and Tide
Amal Moutaouakil

I am a photographer and filmmaker from Morocco , working with visual storytelling as a way to understand people and their inner worlds. I studied cinema, a background that has strongly informed my understanding and practice of photography. I began photography without a clear intention, but it quickly became my most honest form of expression. My work focuses on human relationships, emotions, and the way individuals exist within their social environments. I am interested in quiet moments, psychological states, and the unseen tensions that shape our lives. Through photography and cinema, I try to make visible what often remains unspoken. For me, image-making is both a personal process and a dialogue with society a space for reflection, connection, and transformation.
is a photography project that explores personal memory, family bonds, and the quiet presence of solitude. It reflects the experience of leaving home and the emotions that remain, shift, and resurface over time.
In many parts of the world, travel is a choice a way to rest or escape. In the Sahara, movement is often a necessity. When the heat becomes unbearable, people are forced to leave their homes in order to survive, seeking temporary refuge by the sea during the summer months.
The word Lfrig comes from the Hassani dialect spoken in southern Morocco. It refers to a group of tents placed closely together, symbolizing community, coexistence, and nomadic traditions. These temporary gatherings create spaces where families reunite and reconnect with their roots. However, these reunions are not experienced equally. Some return by choice, guided by nostalgia and memory. Others leave out of obligation, driven by harsh environmental conditions. Despite physical closeness, emotional distance can emerge, revealing fragile and shifting family dynamics.
Through a contemplative documentary approach, this project captures the silent tensions, resilience, and intimacy that shape family relationships, as well as the deep connection between people, their histories, and the ever-changing landscapes they call home.

Date
2 - 30 June
Opening event 5:00 pm
Address
JODAR Artistry

After Time
Mariam Janini

Mariam Janini is a Graphic Designer with a background in Design and Visual Communication and a passion for all things creative, from analog and digital photography to cinema. She recently directed her first short documentary, Raeda, exploring her mother’s arranged marriage through intimate interviews and archival materials. Fascinated by stories that are often overlooked, Mariam focuses on cultural expectations, societal norms, and the quiet, personal moments that connect us all. Through her work, she hopes to help people feel seen, understood, and connected.
After Time is a photographic series centered on my grandmother, exploring the quiet, private moments of aging shaped by memory, routine, and the ongoing relationship with one’s past self. The work lingers on subtle gestures and everyday rituals where time quietly reveals itself.
Through close observation, the series reflects on how aging gradually reshapes the body and one’s sense of identity. After Time approaches aging as lived experience, revealing vulnerability and resilience within the ordinary.

Date
2 - 28 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
ZARA Centre

Heart of Amman
Mayar Kabajah

A visual artist and multimedia designer based in Amman. She abstracts concepts of societal taboos in her work as an attempt to reduce the stigma associated with them, exploring the relationship between the body, perception, and the social narratives from which certain experiences are excluded. Mayar integrates digital technologies with traditional art practices to develop multimedia artistic experiences that open spaces for sensory interaction and reflection, inviting the viewer to confront what is often left unspoken and reconsider it.
Heart of Amman explores the hidden relationship between the city and its lost water. Through research on the Amman Stream and its connection to the Nymphaeum, the project traces how water once shaped the life, geography, and identity of downtown Amman before the stream was buried and gradually forgotten.
Combining visual research and archival materials, the work documents the transformation of the Amman Stream from the moment of its backfilling to today. The installation invites visitors to reconsider their relationship with water and with the cities they inhabit, while exploring the textures of Amman, its surfaces, materials, and sensory memory to imagine a new tactile identity for the city, and to reflect on what Amman was, what it is, and what it might become.

Date
6 - 30 June
Opening event 5:30 pm
Address
Al Mashini Cultural Center

Witness
Celia Soler

Celia Soler Drawn to stillness, their work moves between land and the female figure, focusing on presence rather than pose. They photograph without intervening, allowing moments to unfold as they are. Working intuitively and in natural light, they favor muted tones. These spaces function as points of orientation, as a way of staying present through the body. They are a 21-year-old photographer based in Spain.
This project brings my grandfather’s 1960s photographic archive into a dialogue with the same locations today. His images reveal a land before mass tourism—a town that existed behind the postcard façade. What started as a family archive became territorial, social, and economic documentation. These paired images form a backstage view of both the town and my own biography, revealing layers of time. The foundation where the underlying spirit continues to define its beauty, persists beneath transformation. By revisiting and re-creating his viewpoints, the work exposes two simultaneous timelines: the quiet, domestic landscape he knew, and the now transformed environment shaped by massification. Certain details surface, not as relics, but as subtle markers of a way of life. It appears as fragments that survive only because they were once lost.

Date
2 - 28 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
ZARA Centre

Shughul al-halal
Durrah Afyouni

Durrah Afyouni is an analog and digital photographer based in Amman, Jordan. Durrah’s Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian heritage informs a photographic practice focused on uncovering hidden narratives within the people and landscapes of the Levant. Primarily an analog photographer, Durrah works with medium-format cameras and develops film by hand, maintaining a deep connection throughout the entire process of capturing and preserving moments and stories.
Shughul al-halal is known as the traditional practice of herding sheep and goats throughout the Levant, and has long rooted families in the land. Today, it is being threatened by ever changing regulations, climate pressures, urban expansion, and sociopolitical and economic shifts. Through stories like Abu Ahmad’s, we see what remains hidden: the persistence and the pain of those who continue to work the land while navigating shrinking grazing spaces, tightening municipal restrictions, and the growing need to buy fodder and water as natural sources disappear. Their herds face more disease as they are confined to pens rather than roaming the open routes their ancestors once crossed. Their lives unfold at the margins of a city that keeps pushing outward, consuming the very ground that once fed it. These images offer a glimpse into a world slipping out of view, a testament to resilience, loss, and the fragile thread connecting us to the land we once respected.

Date
1 - 30 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
MMAG Foundation

Group Exhibitions

Projects from Magnum Foundation’s Photography Expanded Fellowship
Heat

Magnum Foundation is pleased to present a series of projects that bear witness to communities around the world transformed by environmental disruption. They were developed in their 2023-25 Photography Expanded: Heat Fellowship, which supported new photographic storytelling about the climate crisis and the inextricable relationship of communities to land. Across eighteen different regions each transformed by power, extraction, and the shadows of colonialism these photographers honor the people and landscapes that, through it all, remain.
This installation features a selection of short videos produced in the initiative, as well as a zine with work by all eighteen photographers: Andrea Hernández Briceño (Venezuela), Farhana Satu (Bangladesh), Fatma Fahmy (Egypt), Florence Goupil (Peru), Gayatri Ganju (India), Giya Makondo-Wills (United Kingdom / South Africa), Hashem Shakeri (Iran), José Luis Arroyo-Robles (Mexico), Kunga Tashi Lepcha (India), Luis Antonio Rojas (Mexico), Luján Agusti (Argentina), Mahmoud Khattab (Egypt), María Valqui (Peru), Miora Rajaonary (Madagascar), Ofoe Amegavie (Ghana), River Claure (Bolivia), seth cardinal dodginghorse (Tsuut’ina Nation), and Zumrad Mirzalieva (Uzbekistan).
Magnum Foundation’s Photography Expanded: Heat Fellowship was made possible by the support of the Rosenthal Family Foundation, the Geneviève McMillan-Reba Stewart Foundation, and the William Talbott Hillman Foundation. It was produced in partnership with Darkroom Amman and MMAG Foundation in Amman, Jordan and the Centre de las Artes de San Agustin (CASA) in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Date
1 - 30 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
MMAG Foundation

10 Frames Unseen
Hassan Ali Saleh Mohammed Srouji

Hassan Ali Saleh, A Palestinian refugee photographer originally from the Jaffa district (Salama), currently based in Nablus. Born in 2004, he began his journey in conceptual photography after finding it the most effective medium for storytelling and expressing deep-seated emotions and the social issues that impact him .His work focuses on toxic lifestyles and the survival strategies experienced in Palestine, aiming to capture the humanity within every story. By drawing attention to what people often tend to overlook, he highlights the realities of life in Palestine. Hassan’s expertise lies in exploring various narrative formats to better convey ongoing stories.
Mohammed Srouji, (b. 1999) is a Palestinian refugee photographer originally from Jaffa (Wadi al-Hawarith), currently based in Nablus. His journey with photography began when he recognized the camera as a vital tool for visual inquiry and human documentation. Mohammad’s work focuses on documenting the intricacies of daily Palestinian life—not as fleeting moments, but as living narratives that embody memory, identity, and resilience. Through his projects, which have been published and exhibited internationally in collaboration with his peers, he seeks to convey the Palestinian reality with profound honesty and visual sensitivity.
The traveling exhibition “10 Frames Unseen” is a powerful testament to the resilience of Palestinian youth and women. Through the lenses of photographers Mohammed Srouji and Hassan Ali Saleh, the exhibition explores the lived experiences of those affected by colonial violence, portraying their daily survival not merely as a struggle, but as an act of social creativity. By blending imagery and personal testimonies, it illuminates the stories of peaceful resistance that often remain invisible, asserting that the right to safety and dignity is universal.
This initiative is powered by NOVACT (The Institute of Nonviolence), a non-profit organization with over 20 years of experience in conflict transformation and peacebuilding across 14 countries. Founded on the principles of “positive peace,” NOVACT works from its offices in Barcelona, Ramallah, and beyond to defend civic spaces and promote ecological, gender, and human justice.
Through the “Protect the Protectors” initiative, this exhibition serves as a catalyst for international solidarity. It reminds us that the Palestinian quest for freedom is a vital chapter in the global struggle for human rights, inviting the world to support those building a future defined by justice and equity.

Date
2 - 28 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
ZARA Centre

The Mother of the Martyr: A Lasting Legacy
Nael Ikhmais Ahmed Buttma

Nael Ikhmais, is an electrical technician and an electronics engineering graduate, a  photographer, and a passionate Palestinian folk dance (Dabke) enthusiast and trainer. He holds an *88-hour certified first aid training certificate*. He has participated in numerous photography competitions, earning multiple awards and recognitions. His work creatively integrates Palestinian identity, aiming to document social and cultural issues through his lens.
Ahmed Buttma, is a Software Engineering student, photographer, and a wedding and advertisement photographer. Passionate about visual arts and cultural heritage, he has participated in various exhibitions and photography competitions. Alongside his love for photography, he is a passionate Palestinian folk dancer (Dabke)  and trainer, and he practices sports. Through his lens, he reflects his emotions,thoughts and his deep connection to Palestinian identity.
This photo project seeks to document the personal belongings kept by the mothers of Palestinian martyrs, as living testaments to memory, absence, and an enduring love.
Through artistic and poignant photographs, the project sheds light on the profound connection between the mother and these possessions, which have transformed from simple everyday objects into symbols of identity, sacrifice, and resilience.
This project does not merely document the image of the steadfast, patient, and resigned mother as perceived by the public; rather, it attempts to reveal something deeper, something unseen and unspoken. We are approaching the hidden moments in the life of a martyr’s mother, those moments when she opens her son’s closet more than once a day, gazing at his clothes, touching his belongings, and reliving his presence, silently reliving the pain of loss. The project reveals how a mother carries her son in her heart, preserving his details, his voice, his memories, and feeling his presence with her every step of the way.
The project doesn’t focus solely on loss, but also on the inner strength of mothers, and how pain transforms into an act of preserving memory and resisting oblivion, making the work a visual space that tells a human story transcending time and place.

Date
2 - 28 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
ZARA Centre

Book Lanuches

Where is the Bride of the Nile?
Roger Anis

Roger Anis is an Egyptian documentary photographer and visual researcher working at the intersection of personal narrative, social structures, and environmental realities. He holds a master’s degree from the Royal Academy of Arts in the Netherlands, where his research focused on water and rivers. Trained in Fine Arts, he began his career in photojournalism in 2010, publishing with international outlets including AP, Getty Images, TIME and The New York Times. His practice explores underreported stories through long-term, research-based projects that often combine photography, writing, and collaboration. Roger is also the co-founder of the EverydayNile Initiative, which uses visual storytelling to engage communities across the Nile Basin.
About the book: Where is the Bride of the Nile? is a visual and research-based journey along the Nile, tracing the author’s travels from Ethiopia through Sudan to Egypt. Blending photography, archival research, myth, and community collaboration, the book reflects on the ancient legend of the Bride of the Nile while engaging with today’s ecological realities through work with fishermen, scientists, and local communities. It is a narrative-driven yet critical exploration of the river as both a living ecosystem and a shared cultural heritage.

Date
6 June
Opening event 4:00 pm
Book launch & artist talk
Address
The Rainbow Theater

Recognition


Ma’an Abu Nowar

Ma’an Abu Nowar was a Jordanian Major General, diplomat, statesman, and historian who played a role in the development of several of Jordan’s modern institutions. He joined the Arab Legion in 1943 and later participated in the defence of Jerusalem during the 1948 war.
Over more than five decades of public service, he held senior national roles including Deputy Prime Minister, Mayor of Amman, Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Director of Public Security, Director of Civil Defence, and Senator. He also held ministerial portfolios in information, culture, public works, youth, tourism, and antiquities.
He contributed to the establishment and development of Jordan’s Civil Defence and helped found the Military Media Directorate during a pivotal period in the Kingdom’s history. His work also extended to public infrastructure, youth and sports, including football competitions that continue today. In later years, he authored historical works documenting Jordan’s political and military history.
Abu Nowar was widely respected by colleagues and staff throughout his public career and was known for his integrity, fairness, and unyielding patriotism.

Date
2 - 28 June
Opening event 7:00 pm
Address
ZARA Centre