This exhibition seeks to center the photobook — not simply as an object, but as a movement. It explores how images in book form shift meaning, challenge histories, and articulate new visions of the world and the self.
Over the past two decades, the photobook has evolved into a rich site of experimentation—where authorship is empowered, form is deliberate, and meaning is in flux. As a practice, photobook publishing has expanded beyond audience engagement to create spaces for artistic collaboration, discourse, and radical self-expression.
Here, the photobook is positioned as more than a container for images; it is presented as a medium of convergence, where photography, design, and publishing intersect to amplify alternative forms of expression.
Thirty photobooks from the Middle East and North Africa are presented in this exhibition, with twelve highlighted in three curated capsules that reflect recurring themes shaping these contemporary lens-based narratives.
The selection represents work from Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey.
What makes the photobook uniquely compelling is its narrative capability to present us with enough context to understand, reflect, and learn about a subject while simultaneously drawing the viewer to project their own perceptions and build alternative meanings of their readings—a reception and reinterpretation of gestures, symbols, and stories.
Welcome to a photobook world.
*The books in this exhibition are part of the collection of Bound Narratives by Roi Saade, a growing archive of Photobooks from the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region.
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Bruno Boudjelal, Omar D, Abdo Shanan, Laura El-Tantawy, Sara Sallam, Mohamed Hassan, Heba Khalifa, Amak Mahmoodian, Mashid Mohadjerin, Hannah Darabi, Tamara Abdul Hadi, Nadhim Ramzi, Ayla Hibri, Mohamad Abdouni, Gilbert Hage, Tanya Traboulsi, Fouad Elkoury, Hicham Benohoud, Tanya Habjouqa, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Maen Hammad, Taysir Batniji, Walaa Yassin and Mohammed Babakir, Salih Basheer, Omar Malas, Zied Ben Romdhane, Oumayma Ben Tanfous, Ali Taptik, Suzan Pektaş, Emin Özmen.
Curated by Roi Saade and Tamara Abdul Hadi
THESE ARE FOR EACH CAPSULE: (Titles in big size, Paragraph small)
Confronting identity, exile, and memory, the books presented in this capsule are concerned with the emotional terrain of home—both as a physical space and an emotional anchor.
Books that navigate moments of rupture, from political unrest to emotional dislocation, personal crises, and world disruptions.
Projects that attempt to counter histories, reclaim lost or hidden narratives, and question who holds the power to record and remember.
