Before, Libya was - to me - hidden beneath layer upon layer of mystery.
After the revolution, these layers began to crack open….
Sometimes I still wake up in panic with the sounds of chirping birds and bombs. Reassuring myself that I did graduate.
I think back to my primary school called Najia Thweer. It was named after a woman whose house was bombed by Americans during the raid back in 1986 against the dictator Gadaffi.
1986 is the year I was born.
I thought that I was lucky to be born after the bombing.
-Nov 21, 2019 Tripoli, Libya
We wore military uniforms and there existed a silent war.
Students no longer wear military uniforms but the war is no longer silent..
It has been 11 years since the revolution - a lot of things have changed in a very short time…
-Aug, 2020 Tripoli, Libya
I think we are only now fully grasping what life was like under the rule of Gaddafi. It was like the “Big brother is watching you” in George Orwell’s 1984. That book itself was banned during Gaddafi's regime , along with his “Animal Farm”.
Mercy
A woman’s name “Rahma” was written on a white cloth rolled over the body. Rahma means mercy in arabic. I imagined how the al-Kaniyat militia (aligned with a UAE backed Hafter) got inside her house and killed all of her loved ones in front of her eyes. And how she was thrown into the grave alive.
- January 22, 2021 Tripoli, Libya
Just before we started our ascent into the mountains, my family would always stop for a picnic in the open fields along the road. Our home in Yefran is only two hours away from Tripoli but we would always stop. After the wars some fields are filled with landmines and remnants of war. We can’t stop anymore.
Things have changed or maybe we all just have grown up?
Despite the ugliness of the war, I see a glimmer of light that signals the end of the conflict.
One day the beauty of my country will be unearthed.
Unearth is my long-term project that tells a story of my homeland, Libya, intertwined between autobiography and my work as a photojournalist. From the time when Libya was in the hands of Gadaffi’s regime, to the 17th of February revolution, civil war, and a new tyrant. An intimate recollection of childhood and fear and hope that Libya’s new chapter would reveal beauty.
Recently, I received a grant from The Aftermath Project for the Unearth Project.