Photography holds a singular power: it captures fleeting moments and preserves them, allowing them to linger in the memory long after they have passed. Through a single image, viewers are transported to a past they never lived, yet the past has shaped the present. A photograph can reveal the essence of an object, the quiet beauty of a transient scene, or the unguarded lives of people in their everyday worlds, transforming the ordinary into something eternal. It allows us to explore memory, heritage, and identity, offering glimpses of what might otherwise remain intangible, and giving shape to the emotions and histories that define us.
For Beirut-based photographer Tanya Traboulsi (Instagram), this power has been present since her earliest memories, ever since she received her first camera and, from that moment, documenting the world around her became second nature. This habit then took form as her dedicated artistic practice, a way of exploring life, memory, and the places and people that shape her. Growing up between Lebanon and Austria, she experienced the complexity of belonging firsthand. Moving between cultures and countries left her in a constant state of questioning: where was home, and to whom did she truly belong? These early experiences of dislocation, longing, and reflection would come to define much of her work.
Returning to Beirut after years away, Traboulsi found herself drawn to the city as both subject and companion. Photographing its streets, its people, and the rhythms of daily life became a ritual, a way to impose order on chaos, to hold onto fleeting moments, and to document a Beirut that continues to evolve. Her images weave together personal memory and collective history, blending family archives with contemporary observations, creating a visual narrative that spans generations. Each photograph invites the viewer into a story, asking quiet questions; Where? What? Why? When? Al this leaves space for connection, empathy, and reflection.
Traboulsi’s work is intimate yet expansive, personal yet universal. Through her lens, Beirut becomes more than a city: it is a vessel of memory, emotion, and identity. Her photographs are not only records of time and place, they are mirrors of experience, capturing the delicate interplay between past and present, self and community. It is this delicate, evocative language of photography that forms the foundation of her practice.
What first drew you to photography, and when did you realize it could become your life’s work?
I received my first camera when I was about four or five years old. From then on, I always had one with me, documenting everyday life around me. But it took me a long time to understand that photography could be more than a habit, that it could become an artistic practice and a life’s work. In my early twenties, I started spending time with photographer friends who were still studying and often asked me to model for them. That’s when the fascination really began. By my late twenties, around 2006, I found myself seriously flirting with the idea of dedicating my life to photography.
Growing up between Lebanon and Austria, how has this duality shaped your sense of belonging and identity as an artist?
Belonging has always been a complicated subject for me. Living between two countries and cultures left me in a state of constant confusion, never fully at home in either. For years, I struggled to call one place “home.” This disorientation is very present in my earlier work. My recent work, however, feels more grounded (at least to me) as if the process itself has given me clarity. Now I know that I feel closest to myself in Lebanon; it is the place where I have experienced both the greatest happiness and the deepest sadness
How did Beirut become such a central theme in your work?
I grew up in Beirut, but we left when I was seven, as the Civil War intensified. I returned thirteen years later. During those years away, I longed for Beirut like one longs for a lover – or perhaps for the feeling of belonging that only Beirut ever gave me. I would ask my mother every day when we would return, but her answers were always vague, which only deepened my anxiety. When we finally did return, I immediately began photographing – first friends, family, and daily life, then more intentionally, shaping my practice around the city. Today, photographing Beirut has become a structured ritual for me: I walk, I shoot, I develop and print in the darkroom. This rhythm gives me a sense of order in a city that can be very chaotic. The project has become a life’s work, always evolving, always growing into new chapters. I hope it will one day stand as an archive of feelings, as a record of a Beirut that continues to age and change.
Your work often explores belonging, identity, and memory. Why are these themes important to you personally?
Because I spent much of my youth searching – for where I belonged, where I came from, and why I didn’t feel at home in Austria. Memory kept me alive during those years. I clung to flashes of memory – the smell of jasmine, the sound of the sea, a handful of treasured photographs I looked at again and again. They carried me through, giving me a fragile but vital sense of home.
How do you approach blending personal family archives with your own photographs to create new narratives?
For me, the story doesn’t begin with my own photographs, it begins decades before, even before my parents met. Family images are part of who I am. They fill the silences, answer questions, and stitch together fragments of identity. When I weave them into my work, it feels like completing a puzzle that stretches across generations.
In your eyes, how does photography serve as a tool for storytelling in ways that words sometimes cannot?
Images can speak with a language all their own. Words tell one kind of story, images another, but when combined, they form entirely new narratives. A single image, or a sequence of them, leaves room for the viewer to imagine, to project, to complete the story with their own details. That openness, that freedom, is what I find so beautiful about photography.
Beirut, Recurring Dream has been shown widely across Europe and beyond. What has the response been like, and how has it evolved across different cultural contexts?
The response has been overwhelming in the most touching way. Many people have shared their own stories with me, and in those exchanges we found points of connection – sometimes through my images, sometimes through shared experiences with other photographers. I didn’t expect such warmth, such resonance. It’s humbling, and it eases some of the loneliness that often comes with this work.
You’ve published books full of your work, what made you want to create them?
I’ve published three books so far, and I think of them as chapters, each representing a stage in my practice. My most recent book, A Sea Apart, is closest to my heart. For the first time, I feel I’ve found a gaze that truly belongs to me – a way of seeing that reflects back my own self.
Your first short film, Son of the Sun, recounts the Beirut port explosion. Do you see yourself continuing with moving images?
I’d love to explore filmmaking further, and I know I will eventually. For now, though, I’ve slowed my pace. The events of recent years forced me to re-centre, to look inward and rethink priorities. The idea of making another film is still there, waiting quietly in the background.
How do you navigate the emotional weight of working with such personal and collective memories?
For me, it isn’t a burden. It’s a source of inspiration. Engaging with memory, trauma, and emotion helps me recognize my own and, in turn, grow – both personally and in my practice.
Where do you find inspiration outside of photography? And how do you know when a project is finished, especially when dealing with such recurring themes?
The sea is my refuge. It calms me, clears my mind, and gives me hope. As for projects, I don’t believe Beirut, Recurring Dream will ever truly end. I like immersing myself in one long-term work rather than scattering my attention across many. In the past too (Untitled Tracks, Lost Strange Things), I worked this way – slowly, consistently, carefully, letting things ripen in their own time. Nothing good ever comes from rushing.
There’s a striking rawness to your work. Why is that important to you, and what do you hope it conveys?
I’m a minimalist at heart. I work with one camera, one type of film, and that’s it. I’m not interested in equipment or elaborate setups. I prefer to use what I have at hand. That limitation forces me to be creative, to push against the edges of what’s possible.
Your work carries a strong sense of nostalgia and feels timeless, even in today’s modern world. How do you achieve that balance?
I think it has to do with how I see. My eyes have been trained over time to notice certain things and to filter out others. I don’t go searching. It’s more intuitive – the result is what you see in my images.
If you weren’t a photographer, what do you think you’d be doing instead?
Honestly, I can’t imagine being anything else anymore. It took me many years of confusion to reach this clarity, and now I can’t picture another life.
If you could photograph anyone, living, historical, or fictional, who would it be and why?
My great-grandmother. Her face carried so many stories. She lived through so much, but she passed away when I was still very young. I never had the chance to sit with her properly, to listen, to ask questions. Photographing her would have been a way to hold on to all that history.
For more stories of art and culture, visit our dedicated archives.
