Tsawwar… Omar Gabriel
Pool Al Madame
"Moni, a Palestinian woman living in Shatila, built a pool in her parking lot for children to play. Her parents arrived there after being displaced from Palestine in the wake of the Nakba. She grew up inside the camp, in a life shaped by limits, where the outside world felt distant, almost unreal. As a child, she carried quiet dreams of simple things she could never reach. Years later, she made herself a promise that the children of Shatila would still taste joy, even if the world beyond remained out of reach.
So she created a pool, not by the sea, not under the open sky, but in an underground parking lot. And somehow, in that unlikely place, laughter echoes, and the walls of the camp soften."
Omargabriel is a Lebanese filmmaker and photographer whose work is raw yet poetic, shaped by emotional human intimacy, bringing to the surface the unspoken narratives and their complex nuances in Arab societies. With a sensibility that moves between tenderness and confrontation, he captures moments that feel both deeply personal and collectively shared.
Tsawwar is an ongoing visual series in Daftar which explores the stories behind a photograph, taken in the region or by an Arab photographer, written in their own words.
