The 2024 cycle of the Arab Documentary Photography Program (ADPP) has concluded with the completion of eight new photo stories. Created by emerging photographers from Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, and Yemen, these projects offer intimate windows to the self amid turbulent times, from exile and migration to conflicts and wars. Each story is the result of a year-long process of creation and mentorship, guided by ADPP mentors Nadia Bseiso, Abdo Shanan, Randa Shaath and Peter Van Agtmael.
In The Salt Ate Away Her Eyes, Libyan photographer Amera Elnaal follows the lives of her blind parents in Tripoli. The project captures the co-existence of beauty, injustice, and dignity woven into their everyday lives. “It stems from my childhood practice of narrating the world to them—describing colors, films, and faces—offering them stories in place of sight,” states Amera.
In Beginnings and Endings, Egyptian photographer Hana Gamal documents the transformation of Cairo’s neighborhoods—the demolition, construction, and disorientation that define the city’s shifting landscape. Her images reflect a deep sense of grief, rage, and longing.
Yemeni photographer Sadiq Al-Harasi’s What Do Fathers Leave Behind? traces the emotional and physical landscapes of loss, as he pieces together the story of his father through memory, place, and personal reflection.
In Crawling on the Dust, Egyptian photographer Ali Zaraay documents the impact of unchecked urban development in the Nile Delta on the nomadic Bedouin family of Haj Hani El Sayed—capturing a way of life on the edge of erasure.
Sudanese photographer Mosab Abushama’s Tadween records daily life in wartime Sudan, exploring how people endure and adapt as conflict reshapes their routines, relationships, and realities.
In Southern Birds, Lebanese visual storyteller Nader Bahsoun navigates the tension between the notions of freedom and struggle and the feeling of exile within one’s own country. “Resistance exists as more than an act—it is a condition, a structure through which identity is negotiated. It asks what it means to endure, and whether endurance alone is enough,” he writes.
Palestinian photographer Yaqeen Yamani’s In Flow with Water looks at the shifting relationship between people and water in Jericho, Palestine, where occupation and gentrification are transforming a vital natural connection.
The eighth photographer preferred not to publish his project.
The full projects are now available to view on the ADPP website.