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From Saqba’s Siege, These Faces Say “We Also Love Life”

  • May 10, 2014
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Photo Credit: "Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah"
Photo Credit: “Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah”
Photo Credit: "Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah"
Photo Credit: “Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah”
Photo Credit: "Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah"
Photo Credit: “Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah”
Photo Credit: "Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah"
Photo Credit: “Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah”
Photo Credit: "Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah"
Photo Credit: “Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah”
Photo Credit: "Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah"
Photo Credit: “Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah”

 

Photo Credit: "Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah"
Photo Credit: “Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah”
Photo Credit: "Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah"
Photo Credit: “Photos from Saqba in Ghoutah”

His dream was to capture the humanity present in even the harshest moments. And in the midst of deepening hardship, Hadi Abo Rayyan has made that dream come true through “Photos from Saqba”: tender, gritty portraits of the lives persevering in his hometown.

Owning a camera was a long-held goal of Hadi’s, but his project began in earnest in early 2011 as protests unfolded across Syria and he was able to use a “small, accurate mobile phone [camera]…to document and record these moments that I was living.”

When he was arrested that spring, he recalls, “I wished that I had a camera there, even if it were small, to record those moments experienced by detainees.” Following his release, he was finally able to buy one and then began, as he puts it, “to take pictures of anything that passed in front of me.”

Channeling that impulse, he and his friend Abo Al-Huda Khaled created “Photos from Saqba” on Facebook, initially to document Saqba itself, a working-class suburb of Damascus in eastern Ghouta that has suffered heavy attacks and now a food blockade. But their work soon shifted to radiant portraits of locals–“children, women and elders”–in which “pain shines through the smiles of children,” Hadi says.

“For me, the images are part of the memory of Syria and the city of Saqba. I hope the world sees that in Syria, women and children are not only dying, but that despite all this suffering, smiles remain on the faces of this city’s people–and the parents say, ‘we also love life.’”

For more info – Photos from Saqba

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Jennifer MacKenzie

Poet, writer and teacher Jennifer MacKenzie grew up on Bloomcrest Dr. in Bloomfield Hills, MI, which inspired her to wonder about places with patterns other than floral. Following her education at Wesleyan University's College of Letters and the University of Iowa's Writers Workshop, she followed a zig-zag course that included a pilgrimage across the top of Spain and a long sojourn in Syria in pursuit of the language of Muhammad al-Maghout and Moudthaffar al-Nawwab. While in Damascus she completed the books of poems "Distant City" and "My Not-My Soldier" (forthcoming from Fence Books) and edited the magazine Syria Today. Her poems and essays can be found in numerous journals including the Kenyon Review online, Guernica, Quarterly West, and Lungfull. She currently lives in New York.

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3 comments
  1. Karyn thomas says:
    May 10, 2014 at 1:02 pm

    Very beautiful. I’m in Istanbul . Australian .i left Syria, Yarmouk, Amara..miss it deeply. I have a house here for Syrians. We all miss Syria . From smallprojectsistanbul..supporting Addar Community Centre..we wish u well and love ur work.

    Reply
    1. Jennifer MacKenzie says:
      May 10, 2014 at 10:21 pm

      Thank you Karyn! I miss it very much too. Souq Juma’a, in my case.

      Reply
  2. ahmad hb says:
    May 10, 2014 at 5:00 pm

    i realy wish to go to saqba to meet hadi and his friends khaled 🙁

    Reply

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