I left Beirut in 1983, at the height of the civil war. I was still a child, but certain memories remain unusually vivid: car horns echoing through narrow streets, the scent of za'atar in the air, orange blossom on balconies, the salty breeze of the corniche, and even the sugary smell of burning garbage near the militia checkpoints on the way to school. These moments, both ordinary and surreal, shaped my earliest sense of home.
When I returned thirteen years later, I came back with questions about the city, about myself, about how places evolve and how we carry them inside us. Beirut had changed, and so had I. That dissonance became the foundation of a long and ongoing reflection on what it means to belong to a place that is constantly shifting.
In 2021, I began photographing the city, not to document events, but to observe its atmosphere, rhythms, and quiet contradictions. I turned to my camera with a sense of urgency. I wasn’t aiming to capture headlines or breaking news. Instead, I wanted to preserve the smaller, quieter details—to hold onto what Beirut felt like beneath the noise.
As I photographed the present, I found myself drawn back to the past. I began exploring my family archive—images from the ‘70s and ‘80s—and a new understanding emerged. The old photos weren’t just keepsakes; they were part of the same story I was still telling. I started placing them alongside my current images, letting them speak to one another. It wasn’t about nostalgia, it was about continuity. About how the past lingers in the present. About how memory shapes our view of what’s in front of us.
More than anything, this project is an archive of feelings I am creating. I’m capturing not just the city’s physical presence, but the emotions and memories that live within it.
The result is a layered portrait of a city that’s hard to define. Beirut is many things at once: chaotic and beautiful, harsh and tender, heartbreaking and full of life. That contradiction runs through everything. It’s why I keep coming back to this work and the city every day.
This is not a definitive story about Beirut. It’s personal, subjective, and full of gaps—just like memory. But in putting these fragments together, I hope to offer a version of the city that feels honest. A place made up of light and shadows, of what we remember and what we forget.
