Lebanese photographer, Ayla Hibri creates stunning photographs, collecting temporal portraits of people and places from cities across the globe. Originally from Beirut, the route of her photographic practice takes shape from curiosity, as well as conflict, and though the way is meandering, her mind seems to race ten steps ahead.

TAH: Can you tell me where you are right now and what you’re up to? Ayla: It’s my fifth day in Sao Paolo, Brazil. I was living in Istanbul for the last 2 years and a half but I made the (tough) decision of putting a hold on that magical city and exploring new territories, far far away, for a little bit. I felt I should take advantage of the current and temporary possibility of being anywhere in the world and so with a lot of courage, here I am, wondering what I am doing here and trying to figure out how to stay. So far I have just been walking around till my feet hurt. Sao Paolo is very intimidating.

Your projects involve a kind of personal displacement, as you say, your ‘temporary homes’. Did you bounce around as you grew up? Or did the desire to travel develop later on? I grew up in Beirut and was there till I was in 20. I have been living abroad ever since, making Beirut my base, a place to go to when I am seeking warmth, love, affection (and good food) and a place to recharge my batteries before the next chapter. Different cities meant different chapters in my life – with Beirut as my intermission, always. Travel has always been something I took very seriously. Perhaps it’s from the books I read, the music I listen to, the photographers I admire and definitely from my family. I was taught never to take anything for granted, not even the ground I walk on. Beautiful things/moments were always pointed out to me as I was growing up so somehow, this intense desire to see and experience as many different places and cultures as possible while I exist on this planet has been seeded in me. Photography is my excuse as well as my purpose and eventually, proof that my eyes have seen.

Why do you think you need to ‘live’, even temporarily, in these places that become your subjects?  I don’t always live in the places I visit. It’s a little bit more casual than that. Sometimes I am in a place for 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months or a year. It’s not always my call. But I like that. It creates diversity in my work. Sometimes I am only able to capture the aura of a place, that vague sensation of what that place exudes, like the melancholy of Istanbul. Sometimes, 3 days after I arrive, I notice a pattern and I obsess over it and completely ignore everything else- and then I wish I could stay longer because I get greedy and I want to collect more and more of that pattern, like my motorcycle riders in Yemen, or my welders in Eritrea. Other times and that’s usually when I am in the same place for a longer period,  I come up with my own exercises like spending the day photographing people around a fountain, going on a road trip or following someone. The only consistent thing is that I always have a camera on me. I don’t separate my personal life from my “profession”. So when I am being lazy with my work, it’s because I am actually being lazy with my life.

People often see adventure as going off-grid, Peter Pan style. But yours take place in cities. What draws you to them? I am curious about the effect of humans on a space. I am not very interested in wild nature or untamed beauty. I love sunsets but I would never photograph them, not even with my phone, I would rather just enjoy those and I’ll probably get a nicer one tomorrow. Everything else that we have created could be gone the next day and that is something Beirut has taught me very well. One day it’s there, the next it’s gone. Someone needs to document the present and so I’m giving it a shot. Cities are a product of human interventions on nature. The inherited conditions in that specific part of the planet affect the way they have intervened. It’s very simple and very humbling. It’s that human survival/experience that I am interested in.

Your work is social, and political. My guess is that’s where your heads at. What satisfaction do you get out of capturing these scenes?  I am not quite sure yet. But I am sure my photographs will be useful one day, at least I hope so. It is an ongoing research and a long term project, I am in no rush, I am just collecting as many images as possible.   Do you feel different photographing at home in Beirut, to new places? Can you tell me a little about your trip back to Beirut recently when you shot Paradi Perdu?  Beirut is very distracting for me, I am always on the run, always in a rush, somehow always busy with mundane things but my last trip there lasted 6 months and that was the longest I had stayed in years. Beirut affects me like no other city, I don’t have that distance that I have with other places, it is like  a lover that I care about way too much to a point where it actually frustrates me and makes me angry. I am not an observer in Beirut, I am part of the show. Paradi Perdu is probably one of my most personal works because I am very much present in it. It was a period of change in my personal life and that affected the way I was shooting. I carried black and white film because colors didn’t matter. I was shooting in an aggressive way because it was a kind of release. I can only shoot this way when I am in Beirut- because I don’t have to be polite.   Paradi Perdu – lost paradise? Actually, I’m kind of interested in these titles you give each series. Very personal, pretty mysterious. What’s in a title? I love naming things, it is so satisfying, it’s like closure.  Some of my series are dedicated to people because they were there with me, somehow and I owe it to them. It is mysterious to you but it makes so much sense to me. People have respect for titles and don’t expect justification, they take them as they are, so I’ll just take advantage of that for now.

The last photo in that series, the building almost consumed by leaves. Dilapidated buildings kind of stand in contrast to your portraits, where there’s often a lot of heat, movement. What’s the curiosity there? I tend to take my time with photos of still subjects, unlike with people. Though I really try to humanize buildings and always go around it looking  for the perfect angle, however, there are always so many constraints when shooting architecture and I have failed many times. You’re always either too close or too far. I even find it more difficult than portraiture. When I shoot architecture, I seek perfection but when I shoot portraits, I embrace all the imperfections.

Usually people in your work are pretty natural, kind of like they just looked up, if they’re looking at all. But you mentioned a recent collaboration where you asked women to strike a feminine pose. Can you tell us about this project? Was it strange to watch people stylise themselves?  That project with  Margherita Chiarva, who’s a close friend and collaborator came about  during one of our late night conversations of self introspection and random silly thoughts. We were actually wondering if we, as the girls we are, were feminine enough, which led to us trying to understand the exact meaning of the word feminine. Wikipedia didn’t give us a satisfying answer and we knew that obviously we can dig deeper into philosophical research but we decided to figure it out ourselves by studying people and coming up with our own conclusion. We got our pink blanket, which was shorter on one side, built our stand which kept falling every time the wind blew, headed out to the busiest streets of the city for 3 weeks and spent the whole day playing the convincing game. For us it was more about that than the photographs themselves. The interaction with other people. Neither of us spoke Turkish, but we had a paper with instructions. We had to persuade these women and convince them to sit on our chair and consciously pose for us and be open about something that normally they are completely unaware of. Some exaggerated, some felt they were feminine as they are and acted as themselves, some just wanted to get it over with, the younger ones giggled and acted silly, the older ones were confident. 120 women later, we came up with no conclusion and we still feel that we’re not done with the project.

Were you surprised by their poses? Do people ever really surprise you with their behaviour in front of the camera? Yes we certainly were. It was so interesting, specially that we always had a crowd gathered around us but there was always that moment of silence before taking the photo. For a split second,  these women were extremely conscious of their being and I think that is what we managed to capture. That moment of awareness of their physical existence- as females. Each city, you take your time getting to know the patterns, rhythms, local people. What’s been the hardest place to leave? All of them, but I have made my peace with leaving places. Moving right on from any nostalgia though… Where to next? No clue.

Interview by Emilia for AHB. Images by Ayla Hibri