Authors

The Photography and Visual Narratives Page is co-edited by Mariam Alarab, Tanya Habjouqa, Maryam al-Khasawneh, Abdo Shanan, Mohamed Somji, and Faris Treish.

Tanya Habjouqa resides in Palestine, and she is an artist, educator, and member of NOOR Images. Her work stems from long-term investments and collaborative methodology, blending ethnography, investigative reportage, and intuitive sense for metaphor. Tanya trained in journalism and anthropology with an MA in Global Media from the University of London SOAS. Her book “Occupied Pleasures” received accolades by both TIME and Smithsonian magazines, and won the prestigious World Press Photo. She is in the permanent collections of the MFA Boston, Institut du Monde Arabe, and Carnegie Museum of Art, represented by East Wing. She mentors for the Arab Photography Documentary Program, teaching workshops internationally.

Abdo Shanan was born in 1982 in Oran, Algeria to a Sudanese father and an Algerian mother. Abdo studied Telecommunications Engineering at the University of Sirte, Libya until 2006. In 2012, he undertook an internship at Magnum Photos Paris, which gave him the opportunity to reflect on his photographic approach and make his first story for the magazine 'Rukh'. His photographs have been published by a number of printed and online magazines as well as by newspapers. In 2015, he received a nomination for Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund and in 2016 his series 'Diary: Exile' was selected by the Addis Fotofest. Abdo in 2019 won The CAP Prize(Contemporary African Photography) for his ongoing project “Dry”, in the same year he is selected for Joop Swart Masterclass by World Press Photo.

Faris Treish, a recent high school graduate, based in East Jerusalem, and works as a photojournalist across Palestine.  He focuses on creating new narratives and changing Palestinian representation in media. He started “The Smiles Across Palestine” campaign to raise money for the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. He is currently launching an online platform called “The Dawaween Collective” which is a collection of art and stories focused on identity, society, and culture. He is interning with Tanya Habjouqa of NOOR Images and Jadaliyya, and is pursuing a degree in Film, TV, and Media at Quinnipiac University.

Maryam al-Khasawneh is a historian from Jordan. She received her MA in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. She is currently working on publishing her thesis entitled ‘the Arab reaction to the Ottoman call to arms 1908-1914’. She is also working on launching an online and printed, bi-lingual magazine entitled Balsam Magazine, which is dedicated to food anthropology, agriculture and the celebrating communities in the Middle East and North Africa. She has worked with several archives, including photo archives, dedicated to the Middle East throughout the region and in Europe, namely the National Archives in the UK, the Basbakanlik (Ottoman state Archives) in Turkey, and several private family archives in Jordan and Palestine.

Mariam Alarab is a documentary photographer based in Bahrain. Through her work, she seeks to interrogate existing and historical narratives and present them in nonlinear, disrupted way.  Mariam’s areas of focus include the connection between culture, politics, history, and environment. Her practice blends collaboration with people and communities, and immersion in place and landscapes. Mariam spent her early childhood in Damascus, Syria before moving back to Bahrain in 2001. In 2019 She was selected for the Arab documentary photography program supported by Prince Claus Fund and Magnum Foundation.

Mohamed Somji is a Tanzanian national with Indian roots and has been living in Dubai for the last 40 years. Mohamed is a curator, photographer, and director of Gulf Photo Plus, a Dubai-based photography gallery and community organization. In addition to offering a wide range of photography educational and art programs, the organization hosts a week-long annual event that draws the world's preeminent talent in photography and hosts events and activities with a view to nurturing and developing photography talent in the region. His personal work aims to provide a critical commentary on social issues and challenge established forms of visual representation of people and places. 

Extended Team: 

Rehab Eldalil is a documentary photographer and visual storyteller based in Cairo, Egypt. Her creative practice focuses on the broad theme of identity, using multimedia collaborative approaches to involve communities in the body of work. Having lived in the US during 9/11 and experienced rising xenophobia then returning back to Egypt where years later she participated in the Jan25 Egyptian revolution, Rehab uses her personal background as creative inspiration. As an advocate for native Bedouin community rights in Sinai and a licensed scuba diver and experienced mountain trekker Rehab is drawn to topics that challenge linear identities and oriental ideologies. With rising issues on borders, stigma, and general loss of identity around the world her focus contributes to advocating for social justice and understanding. Rehab is currently pursuing her MA photography long-distance learning at Falmouth University, UK.

Thana Faroq is a Yemeni documentary photographer and educator based in the Netherland.Her work aims to achieve a personal reportage that negotiates themes of memory, boundaries, and violence. She focuses on collaborative storytelling projects to tell personal anecdotes of displacement and migration. Previously, Thana worked with various international NGOs in Yemen to tell stories of displacement women and children in Yemen, portraying the suffering and highlighting on the forgotten crisis there. In 2018, Thana was awarded the Open Society Foundations fellowship on her ongoing project The Passport. She is also a recipient of the Arab Documentary Fund 2019 supported by the Prince Claus Fund and Magnum Foundation

Tasneem Alsultan is an investigative photographer and storyteller. Her work largely focuses on documenting social issues and rights-based topics in Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf region through a gender lens, challenging stereotypical perceptions of the Middle East and portraying a region and people that do not conform to expectations. Covering stories primarily for The New York Times and National Geographic, Tasneem documents ground-breaking developments in Saudi and the region. In 2018 she joined the Canon Ambassador program as the program’s first Arab female photographer and was selected as one of the 12 recipients of the Joop Master Class, part of the World Press Photo, Netherlands. In 2019, Tasneem was selected as a recipient of the Catchlight Fellowship to continue her work on Saudi women. She has also received honorable mention for the Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism.

Marc Mouarkech is a cultural consultant and a curator. He previously served as the co-director of the Arab Image Foundation steering its focus on accessibility, activation, and education, while developing an approach that explores potentialities of photography and archives as notions in constant motion and evolution. Between 2010 and 2017, Marc was the director of Galerie Tanit, a contemporary art gallery based in Beirut with a sister gallery in Munich. Since 2014 he organized and co-curated several exhibitions in Beirut, Aarhus, Madrid, Cordoba, and Arles. In 2015, he co-founded a collective of 8 curators that adopted the name of MADRASSA, interested in the institutional and collective practices in the region. Marc also gives lectures and mentors photography students in Lebanon.