What becomes immediately apparent upon taking a good look at Ammar Abd Rabbo’s new solo exhibition ‘Aleppo’ is the tasteful proclivities of the city’s people, even a sense of joie de vivre, while being swept into the throes of devastation.
Through his spread of 31 photographs, Syrian photographer Abd Rabbo, who is regarded as one of Arab world’s noteworthy photojournalists, tells us, among many things, the cultured sophistication of the people of Syria.
“There’s amazing beauty and very high standard and tastefulness of living among the people of Aleppo. Even if they are poor, they are careful about the way they eat or conduct themselves. You can see many such instances in these pictures taken during the war,” the Damascus-born Abd Rabbo tells Community moments before the exhibition opened on Tuesday at Building 22 of Katara — it is on until March 30.
Marking the fifth anniversary of the Syrian Revolution, the exhibition presented by Katara and the French Embassy in Qatar, serves as homage to the civilians trapped in Syrian cities. As Abd Rabbo rightly points out, there are several instances of the “tastefulness” of Aleppo’s people.
In one photograph, an armed soldier guarding a part of a crumbling souq amidst heavy shelling is seen seated next to a cup of tea on a little stove and smoking his sheesha. In another picture, we see the dilapidated portions of a bombed building being turned into the shooting locale for a local comedy TV series. There are other striking, everyday pictures, such as that of a boy selling green plums on a handcart, or a bunch of youth dancing in their neighbourhood even as their vicinity is plunged in violence.
Such daily life depictions tell us a lot about who these people are, feels Abd Rabbo. “What was important for me was to convey the human side of Aleppo’s people — their humanity, their dancing, chanting, eating, going to school, going to markets. It’s important to show that despite everything collapsing in Syria, there’s a human side to this tragedy,” Abd Rabbo says.
Thought-stirring and deeply affecting, Abd Rabbo’s photographs offer an earnest glimpse into just how the Syrians are getting by in the war-torn state. “Most people have the idea that Syrians are either monsters like the Daesh or the regime, or that they are refugees and have all left Syria. These pictures insist and show that the people of Syria are living there, defending their homes in spite of a massive humanitarian crisis,” Abd Rabbo says.
To add to the world’s eroding empathy and understanding of the situation, “most of the tragedies in Syria have been totally dehumanised,” Abd Rabbo believes. “When you see people beheading people, or throwing them off the top of buildings, you tend to distance yourself from it all. You feel like you don’t want to be involved with these people. Unfortunately, that takes away the humanity from the Syrians, which is what I wanted to bring to the fore.”
The photographs doff a hat to the “eternal” city of Aleppo. There are four pictures that show Aleppo’s citadels and markets before the war and several that document the dark aftermath — dusty debris of buildings, streets barred by bedspreads and rugs to protect people from snipers, school children returning from class. As a whole, they are a testimony of Aleppo’s struggle to live despite its martyrdom, feels Abd Rabbo.
“It’s a besieged city that suffers from hunger and shortages like the other cities of Syria,” he says, “But it’s one of the oldest cities in the world and it is an ‘eternal city’. It’s destroyed but it will be rebuilt again.”
Abd Rabbo admits that it has been a difficult place to access. “The roads are fraught with danger. The city is constantly shelled. There are no borders anymore, as we know. Journalists are kidnapped or killed. But I really believe it’s our duty, and mine as a Syrian, to document what is happening and show the world. If we don’t do it, who will?” he asks.
Understandably, it’s hard to be objective in such scenarios and that’s the least of Abd Rabbo’s concerns. “I don’t pretend to be neutral,” he clarifies, “You cannot be neutral in such a conflict when you are with families and kids who are being attacked by Air Force planes, helicopters, chemical weapons, tanks, kalashnikovs, basically by anything that’s conceivable.”
Having lived in Libya and Lebanon, Abd Rabbo moved to France in 1978 after the intensification of the Lebanese Civil War. Prior to joining Sipa press agency in 1992, he studied political sciences at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques and worked as a freelancer with various French and international news publications. He later left Sipa to create Balkis photo agency, which is now syndicated by Abaca Press. His works are housed in the Barjeel Foundation, Sharjah; Daniel Barenboim Collection, Berlin; Salsali Private Museum; and The Samawi Collection, Dubai.
While his works have been published in leading and popular publications — from Time Magazine to Paris Match, from Der Spiegel and Le Monde to Asharq Al Awsat — Abd Rabbo’s twenty-year-long career traverses war coverage in Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, and Syria; portraits of heads of states; snapping up celebrities such as Michael Jackson; and covering even the Cannes Film Festival and Paris Fashion Week.
Abd Rabbo’s Aleppo exhibition has already made the rounds of different cities in France such as Paris, Alençon, and Mandelieu, and in Qatar, it has found its friend in the French Embassy.
Ambassador of France to Qatar, Eric Chevallier, said, “This exhibition is a reminder to us that after undergoing suffering, pain, violence, torture, and bombings for five years, the Syrian people are still there, trying to survive and still calling for democracy and dignity. We, at the French Embassy, decided to present this exhibition as part of Francophone Days because while Francophone refers to a language and a culture, it also stands for values of respect for the people and solidarity with them. In this context, doing something about the people of Aleppo, and therefore Syrians, was important. Another reason why we came in is because what Syrians are experiencing is the most important human tragedy of this century which addresses all our conscience, far beyond the borders. It is something that all of us, whatever our nationality, must not forget.”
Of the countless instances of “humanity” of the people of Syria that the 49-year-old photographer encountered, he points to a photograph of an old man with a gun and shares the anecdote laced with black humour. “As I saw him man running on the war-torn street with his Kalashnikov, I positioned myself and clicked some pictures. He saw me and came right up to me and asked: ‘Aren’t you ashamed? Are you out of your mind?’ I figured I have erred and this man was armed. So I apologised and said that I should have asked him before,” Abd Rabbo recalls.
And then, the old man surprised Abd Rabbo. “He told me: ‘It’s not a problem that you didn’t ask me before. The problem is that I have a cigarette in my hand and it’s a shame to have a photo with it.’ He then stubbed it out and posed for this picture that you now see here. I found it funny. Everything around him was coming down and he still had the manners to keep the cigarette out of the frame.”