Contacts Information
Name: Samer Mohdad
Address: , France
Website: Link
Date: 10/23/2007
Company: Arab Images
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Samer Mohdad

Samer Mohdad was born in 1964 in Bzebdine, Lebanon, to a father who was an engineer and a mother who was a poet. After the Lebanese Civil War broke out, bombs, exile, fighting, and the death of close friends and acquaintances marked his adolescence. In 1983, he moved to Belgium to complete his studies. Following his graduation in art of photography in 1988 from St-Luc in Liège, Belgium, he started working for the “Agence Vu” in Paris until 2002.
In 1990, he was commissioned by the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne to take a series of photographs of the Swiss Armed Forces for a book and exhibition entitled “Voir la Suisse Autrement”, to celebrate Switzerland’s 700 years of existence.
He is the author of seven books and exhibitions: War Children, Lebanon (1993), Return to Gaza (1996), Mes Arabies (1999), Assaoudia (2005), Mes Ententes (2005), Beirut Mutations (2013) and Voyage en pays Druze (2018).
In 1997, Samer Mohdad co-founded the Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation, an organization that seeks to archive and preserve photography from the MENA region.
Since the early 1990s, his photographs have been exhibited and were collected by museums and other art institutions around the world.
In 2013, Accomplished Visions: The Arabs, a retrospective exhibition of his works, was shown at the submarine base in Bordeaux in the cycle “Photographers for the History” and during the summer of the same year at Rencontres de Arles in France. A selection of his works were exhibited at FotoFest Biennial 2014 in Houston, USA, then in June 2015 at Blue Sky Center for the Photographic Arts in Portland, Oregon, USA, and in fall 2016 at the Sol Mednick Gallery, at the University of Arts, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Samer Mohdad has received several awards and scholarships: Nikon Award in 1990, Word Press Photo Award and laureate of the lagardere foundation scholarship in 1992, the Mother Jones International Fund for Documentary Photography in 1999 and Pioneer Photographer of National Geographic All Roads Program in 2011.
Lately, his photographs have been part of the exhibition Football in the Arab World, which took place at the Institute of the Arab World in Paris in 2019, and then at FIFA museum in Zurich until January 2020. Currently, his photographs are part of the exhibition “Is it a Beautiful Game?” taking place at the museum of the Media Majlis at Northwestern University in Qatar.
War children, Lebanon 1985-1992
War children, Lebanon 1985-1992

Ashoura celebration in the Chiite city of Nabathieh, south Lebanon, 1989

War children, Lebanon 1985-1992
War children, Lebanon 1985-1992

Preparing dinner at the Syrian Nationalist Party’s Lions Cubs training camp in Mount Lebanon, 1989

War children, Lebanon 1985-1992
War children, Lebanon 1985-1992

Ashoura celebration in the Chiite city of Nabathieh, south Lebanon, 1989

War children, Lebanon 1985-1992
War children, Lebanon 1985-1992

Rope climbing practice at the Syrian Nationalist Party’s Lions Cubs training camp in Mount Lebanon, 1989

War children, Lebanon 1985-1992
War children, Lebanon 1985-1992

Children at the PLO Lion Cubs in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp near Saida, south Lebanon, 1989

War children, Lebanon 1985-1992
War children, Lebanon 1985-1992

Children at the PLO Lion Cubs in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp near Saida, south Lebanon, 1989

War children, Lebanon 1985-1992
War children, Lebanon 1985-1992

Refugees in their own county, escaping bombardment by General Aoun army, Naher El Bared near Saida, south Lebanon, 1989

War children, Lebanon 1985-1992
War children, Lebanon 1985-1992

Nomads camp in Kab Elias, Bekaa region, Lebanon 1986

War children, Lebanon 1985-1992
War children, Lebanon 1985-1992

Playing with gun at the PLO Lions Cubs in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp near Saida, south Lebanon, 1989

War children, Lebanon 1985-1992
War children, Lebanon 1985-1992

Refugees in their own county, escaping bombardment by General Aoun army, Naher El Bared near Saida, south Lebanon, 1989

War children, Lebanon 1985-1992
War children, Lebanon 1985-1992

Children at the PLO Lion Cubs in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp near Saida, south Lebanon, learn Dabkeh, a traditional Palestinian dance, 1989

War children, Lebanon 1985-1992
War children, Lebanon 1985-1992

The PLO Lions Cubs in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp near Saida, south Lebanon, 1989