"Through portraits, fragments, field notes and testimonies, Al-izzi seeks to unveil a broader sense of continuity and communion: During a two-week sound residency organized by Mathias Chaboteaux (Huveshta Rituals Records) and music producer Louis Shungu, an ephemeral recording studio was built inside a mud house to capture the voices and instruments of the village's musicians. My aim was to translate their story through the lens, to portray a community whose music carries both memory and resilience."
"The resulting photographs form part of a broader multidisciplinary project: a 16mm short film, a photo book combining text and imagery, and a music album-all set to be exhibited across Europe alongside live performances. This work stands as a tribute to people living on the edge of desertification, whose ancestral knowledge continues to spread from older generations to the younger ones."
Taha Al-izzi is a London-based photographer born in Amman to Kurdish-Iraqi parents who experienced movement from Iraq to Jordan to Toronto. The work returns attention toward echoes of identity within dislocation and connects forced migrations in North Africa with the Kurdish diaspora. The project focuses on Khemliya, a Gnawa community descended from enslaved West African peoples at the Sahara's edge. Portraits, fragments, field notes and testimonies map continuity and communion. A two-week sound residency with Mathias Chaboteaux and Louis Shungu created an ephemeral mud-house studio to capture voices and instruments. The photographs join a 16mm film, photo book and music album for European exhibition and live performance, honoring ancestral knowledge and resilience amid desertification.
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