Sima Diab (

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

, November 1979) is a

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

-American photographer and press photographer who has portrayed the civil war in her country,

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

. Her career as a photographer started in 2006 and she has been a professional photographer since 2013. Her works have been published in the most important English-language newspapers English around the world, like

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

, and others. She was a grantee in the 2015 Arab Documentary Photography Program from the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture/ Prince Claus Fund / Magnum Foundation.

Studies and early career

Sima Diab was born in November 1979, in

, capital of Syria. She was educated in the United States and Syria, returning to the Middle East permanently in 2002 after finishing her university education in the US. She began to travel with her camera by 2006 and visited the

Near East The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

. She settled in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

in 2007 and is based in

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

Professional career

Her photographs focus on features, social documentaries about daily life and conditions in the

Arab diaspora Arab diaspora is a term that refers to descendants of the Arab emigrants who, voluntarily or forcibly, migrated from their native lands to non-Arab countries, primarily in the Americas, Europe, Southeast Asia, and West Africa. Immigrants from ...

and the

Arab world The Arab world ( '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in ...

. Diab is recognised for her photographic works, considered very personal and committed, on the Syrian Civil War and on the Syrian population. She mixes emotions and movements to convey her own experience of the facts. In 2015 she began a project about the hard life on the Serbo-Hungarian migratory route before

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

closed its borders. She reflects the urgency of finding shelter, of finding a new border crossing between

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

and

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

, the fear and the embarrassment. The pictures reveal her subjects' uncertainty and need to build another life. She is a member of the Frontline Freelance Register and of the

National Press Photographers Association The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) is an American professional association made up of still photographers, television videographers, Editing, editors, and students in the journalism field. Founded in 1946, the organization is base ...

(NPPA).

Recognitions

She won 2016 James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting from the Online News Association She won American Photography's Best of Photography 2015 AP32. She has been granted in the 2015 Arab Documentary Photography Program from Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), Prince Claus Fund and Foundation Magnum.

Exhibitions

Most important exhibitions: * Viral: Photography in the Age of Social Average, United Kingdom * EverydayClimateChange: Milan Exhibition,

Expo 2015 Expo 2015 was a World's fair, World Expo hosted by Milan, Italy. It opened on May 1 at 10:00 Central European Summer Time, CEST and closed on October 31. Milan hosted an exposition for the second time; the first was the 1906 Milan Internation ...

in Milan * EverydayClimateChange: Photoville 2015, New York City * Exhibition Chemins d'exil / Ways of exile. Institut Français Espagne 2016,

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

References

External links

Sima Diab – Website

Sima Diab – Instagram

Sima Diab – Profile in Twitter

Sima Diab – Profile in Frontline Freelance Register
{{DEFAULTSORT:Diab, Sima American photojournalists 1979 births 20th-century American photographers Living people 20th-century American women photographers 21st-century American women Women photojournalists