Published! Interview with Tanya Trabulsi for Hadara
Themes of memory, belonging, and identity are recurring motifs in Traboulsi’s work. Born in 1976, a year after the start of Lebanon’s civil war, her family fled the country in 1983 to the safety of Austria, her mother’s home country. But a longing for Lebanon remained.
“When my family left Beirut, we left by ferry. I watched the city slowly disappear, a thin stretch of buildings retreating on the horizon getting farther and farther across the sea.”
That image stayed with her for 13 years, inspiring the title of her photo series, Beirut, Recurring Dream. “Years later, I took that photo. It’s in my book,” she says. “It was exactly how I remembered it.”
I have interviewed the artist for Hadara.
