Essay 56 • Jun 22nd 2016
- Photography by Ghaleb Cabbabé
When people open the door to their new home for the first time, they tend to think that their first steps mark the very beginning of a new story. However, the immaculate walls that surround them could tell a different tale. These walls have actually witnessed the colored daily lives of all the anonymous construction workers who not only built, but also inhabited and personalized the same place for months, and even years.
This series of photographs opens a new perspective, and thus a new door, on the places we simply call home.
Ghaleb Cabbabé
Ghaleb Cabbabé was born in Beirut in 1978 during the Civil War. When his parents moved to Paris in 1982, they were unable to secure him a place at school. Eager to “console” him, his aunt, a photographer, blessed him with his first prized camera. Her love of photography was contagious; he soon caught the bug.
A trained architect, Ghaleb worked in inspirational environments such as Oman and Vietnam before carrying several missions for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan, South Sudan, Congo and Sri Lanka.
In 2012, he studied photography at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.
Ghaleb won the Byblos Bank Award for Photography at Beirut Art Fair in 2013. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Beirut and Prague.
Instagram: @ghalebcabbabe
Online portfolio: www.ghalebcabbabe.com
Special thanks to Sherif Aoun for opening the right doors