I’m French and Syrian, I have a double nationality, my parents and my whole family are still in Damascus. My modest work is talking about hope  for Syria and all humanity. About the fragility of life and the nice moments we have to catch. And about our dreams which we try to make real and visualize.

 

THE WORLD THROUGH THE LENS OF A BUBBLE

The photographic adventure is a path of initiation lined with seeking the Self and encountering the Other, and with the sharing of a vision of the world. It is a voyage, a rupture, a sensitive openness to the world, a passageway to the outside, the encounter of otherness, a dialogue and a sharing. Perceiving the message communicated in a photographic work, one comes back altered, different, or even transformed. Indeed, this creative trajectory leading up to this "nomadic work of art" that consists of the images gathered by the photographer during this journey, as well as his encounter with the Other, not only transform the photographer himself, but also the viewer. There is something irresistibly magical and mysterious in soap bubbles.

 

This fascination led me to adopt and immortalize them in my series of photographs. Out of these large soap bubbles still floating in the air, shot from angles enhancing their myriad of colors and their transparency, a true narrative poetry comes to life, meanwhile based on a slightly different photographic approach. A breath or a displacement of air is sufficient for them to spring, all round-shaped, in their purest form ̶ the soap bubbles. Light and undulating, they rise through the air inside the ethereal azure, hover for a moment as if suspended on an invisible thread. Iridescent bubbles, transparent bubbles, fragile elusive things, slithered from a string and sticks, they last only the time of a glance. Ephemeral bubbles, they disappear as suddenly as they had appeared ... but they leave behind some tiny bubbles of light in the amazed eyes of the young and old.

 

Beyond the childish game, those translucent creatures are the very image of our dreams that we dream to realize, of the good moments lived that we wished to last forever, and of our beautiful flighty ideas that we wished to recapture. Iridescent, they have the power of reminiscence, as they realign us with our childhood and its memories. Crystalline, they symbolize hope and joy. While flying, they wear the seven colors of the rainbow, and burst out at a patch of blue sky to allow us to escape beyond the boundaries of our imagination. It is for all these reasons that I create them, observe them, shoot and capture them with my camera.In this vast world, on continent after continent, in country after country, city after city, these translucent spheres are traveling alongside with me, while drawing the silhouettes of people, highlighting the details of a face or a smile, reflecting a place or monument, or while remaining suspended in unknown skies, such as an exhortation to escape to some nomadic regions.

 

Each bubble is itself a realm of dreams inside an oneiric world. A journey through the lens of a bubble is an invitation to lightness, to the pleasures of travel and discovery, and a call to come out of one's own bubble to finally dreaming the dream of life.

 

"Make bubbles not war"

Everything starts with a dream, life is a story that feeds on the substance of dreams. It is in childhood that hope is anchored, since happiness is a child's dream realized in adulthood. Innocence and spontaneity, a sense of wonderment, a light air bubble that dresses with the colors of the rainbow an empty space, all this builds up our dreams that we long to see growing, and perhaps one day coming true. In a world full of uncertainty, violence and complexity, this album is a human response as to deepen an awareness of the happiness and the beauty of life, an attempt to visualize dreams, to draw a smile upon people's faces from here and elsewhere. By taking these soapy creatures along with me in my travels, I try to create moments of joy, inspiration and wonderment that the camera will capture and archive in time and space. The bright eyes of a child in Istanbul or in Nice are the same as that of a Brazilian or Algerian child. We are born equal, and when we know how to share and give these treasures of simple happiness, then we align ourselves to our common humanity that unites us all.

 

 

 

 

WORK