A group of Lebanese and French photographers is selling limited-edition prints to fundraise for people in Lebanon who have been displaced by Israel’s recent attacks. In recent months, wide-scale walkie-talkie explosions and escalating Israeli airstrikes on the region have resulted in thousands of deaths and injuries and raised alarm about the future of the country’s infrastructure and ancient cultural heritage sites.
Photographers for Lebanon, which kicked off on October 25, is selling 100 prints by over 35 photographers through November 25 to generate proceeds for the on-site Lebanese nonprofit Mon Liban d’Azur. Each print, which measures about 8 inches by 11 inches (20 by 30 cm) is limited to 15 copies and listed at €150 (~$162), excluding shipping costs.
Works for sale include a 2016 landscape portrait taken in Afghanistan by Hazara photographer Zahra Khodadadi; a hand-colored archival family photograph from the 2020 series Love is Worn Around the Neck by French-Lebanese filmmaker Rima Samman; and a 2015 photo of Beirut taken from the city’s landmark Barakat building by Lebanese artist and researcher Sirine Fattouh.
The campaign has so far raised more than €19,000 (~ $20,500) of its €70,000 (~ $76,600) goal, one of the campaign’s organizers, Emma Zahouani Burlet, told Hyperallergic.
All proceeds generated from the initiative will be donated directly to Mon Liban d’Azur, which will then redistribute funds to groups including the Lebanese Red Cross, the Lebanese Food Bank, the Beirut soup kitchen Cuisine de Mariam, the Catholic aid nonprofit Caritas Lebanon, and the food security organization Matbakh El Balad, Burlet said.
“We found it important to support organizations that don’t have international visibility,” Burlet added. “Since we know the local context, we understand what civil society is doing on the ground, and we are doing our part by trying to help in the best way possible”
A Paris-based photographer with Lebanese origins, Burlet founded the campaign with the French-Lebanese curator and Mougins Center of Photography Director Yasmine Chemali, French photographer Marguerite Bornhauser, and Lebanese photographers Lara Tabet and Randa Mirza.
Aside from the group’s personal connections to the region, Burlet stressed that they are motivated by their common humanity, which made each of them “deeply affected by the situation in Gaza and Lebanon, as are many people.”
“Our goal is to show solidarity through art and within the photography community,” Burlet said.
Visual artist and photographer Jade Maily, who contributed a 2019 photograph taken at the Bayco and Ortigosa dam in the Spanish region of Albacete where her family lived in exile during Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, told Hyperallergic that she thinks it is imperative for artists to support initiatives such as this one because “what is happening concerns us all and we cannot turn a blind eye.”
“What’s more, we must stay humble: offering a photograph is nothing compared to what the sale will achieve on the ground, with the association and all those who are taking action,” Maily added, emphasizing that “it’s nothing compared to all the people displaced.”
