A small boy standing before a cracked picture of his father, who was killed in the war. To the right, a woman wearing a black headscarf lifts her eyes to the only source of light in the room. These are people, whose life is suspended for an instant, before falling back into war. A conflict in Lebanon, which the photographer Samer Mohdad has known all his life and which has forced him into exile. In 1983, Samer Mohdad left for Belgium. It’s there that he discovered his vocation: photography. Images allowed this young man to discover “the power of displaying reality in black and white”; a reality he had witnessed for twenty years. From 1985 on, Samer Mohdad travelled throughout the Arab world producing major photo reportages. His shots published in Libération, Le Monde, L’Evénement du Jeudi, Photo Reporter and the New York Times Magazine are exhibited in several countries. Thanks to the grant from the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation, Samer Mohdad as able to complete another sentimental and important project: portraying all the religious minorities in the Middle East, because, as he explains, “in the eyes of the wider world, the problems in these regions are the result of conflict between the Arab and Jewish communities”. Samer Mohdad therefore revealed far more than this Manichaean dualism by capturing images of Jews, Maronites, Druze, Ismaelians, Chaldeans, Alaouites, Yazidies and Copts…

Achievements since winning the grant:

In 1993, Samer Mohdad published Les Enfants de la guerre, Liban 1985-1992 and exhibited his work at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne.
In 1994, he created a picture reportage on the 387 Palestinians expelled from Israel to the Lebanese no man’s land, from which he published a book, Retour à Gaza.
In 1997, he was superintendent of the exhibition entitled Les Martyrs de Cana at the RIP (Rencontres Internationales de Photographie) in Arles and at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne.
In 1998, he was superintendent of the exhibition entitled Un si proche Orient, at the RIP in Arles and of Liban intime 1900-1960 as part of the Photography Month.
In 1999, he exhibited Histoires intimes and Portraits du Caire at the 1999 RIP in Arles. In the same year, he won the Mother Jones prize in San Francisco and his Mes Arabies was published by Actes Sud.
In 2001, he worked at Imaging consultant in Riyad where he created an image centre at the King Abdulaziz Public Library.
In 2004, Samer Mohdad headed the Arabic Foundation for the Image in Beirut and created a special dossier on the Liban for GEO magazine.
In 2005, Assaoudia, a second volume of Mes Arabies was published by Actes Sud. It was accompanied by an exhibition at the RIP in Arles.
In 2006, he produced a photo-reportage “Sur les traces des croisades au Liban” for GEO and several reportages for Le Monde.
He is currently lecturing in photography at Notre-Dame University in Beirut.