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The New Generation of Arab Photographers

Arab photographers are reclaiming and redefining the way they see themselves and their world, giving us images that challenge traditional tropes and stereotypes.
By Bahira Amin • Feb 03, 2021
Arab photographers, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, AFAC, Arab people, Middle East, North Africa, Arab world, Bahira Amin, Middle East news, Lebanon news

© agsandrew / Shutterstock

Discerning eyes have known for quite a while that the Arab world is more than it appears in conventional photography. The old visual language of minarets and souks, of unassuming eyes set deep in dark faces, of conceptual or actual “unveilings” and of non-consensual or ambivalent colonial portraiture is one of yesterday.

Though this may have seeped backward, another dynamic of documentary photography came forward, one defined by the symbiotic relationship between news cycles and photographers in the region. Whatever media outlets needed, photographers were shooting. From this political economy of photography arose the decades of image production that defined a new visual shorthand for the Arab world: namely, the necessary but relentless Rolodex of photo stories focused on war, conflict and revolution.

In recent years, however, remarkable bodies of work have been coming out of a new generation of young Arab photographers, due in part to the support of institutions like the Beirut-based Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC). Its Arab Documentary Photography Program, which has been training and funding emerging Arab photographers since 2014, has helped produce an impeccable collection of photo essays.

Available here, the collection is courageous, surprising and powerful, with crackling lenses weaving between water security in Jordan, climate change in Mauritania, the plight of mine workers in Morocco and the transgender community in Lebanon.

Arab photographers, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, AFAC, Arab people, Middle East, North Africa, Arab world, Bahira Amin, Middle East news, Lebanon news
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CategoriesArab News, Culture, Middle East & North Africa, Middle East News, Quick read, World News TagsAFAC, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, Arab people, Arab photographers, Arab World, Bahira Amin, Lebanon news, Middle East, Middle East news, North Africa
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