Tsawwar… Zeinab Mahfoud
"My Tata and I waited, admiring the fog, whispering alhamdulillah for the mist, for the stillness before the harvest. When Hajj Zouhair arrived, he brought with him a name I didn’t know: زعرور. Small red fruit mistaken for cranberries, described to me as 'tiny apples' اند tasting of both sweetness and soil.
We spent the morning trading words the way one trades seeds, hoping they might take root. My broken Arabic and his simple English weaved together in laughter. He told me how, before maps and councils, people planted zaaarour along the edges of their land so the trees would remember the borders long after they’d forgotten.
After a day of harvesting, we returned home and sat beneath the shade, plucking the zaarour from its leaves. The leaves were left to dry and become our regular tea, while the fruit was washed and eaten, its taste lingering like the afternoon light."
Zeinab Mahfoud is a multidisciplinary creative, community advocate, and cultural curator passionate about storytelling, social justice, and empowerment. As a third-generation migrant and first-generation Lebanese-Australian, she bridges diverse identities and explores themes of heritage, displacement, and resilience through photography, film, theatre, and poetry.
Her work spans exhibitions like "Oh, I'm Going to the South and Figs: Rooted in South Lebanon", celebrating the resistance and courage of South Lebanon. She has produced photography projects such as Front Yard Stories, highlighting the diversity of South Western Sydney, and Awakening Spirits, an introspective look at Muslim identity in the diaspora. Rooted in her lived experiences and deep connection to South Lebanon, Zeinab’s practice moves between art, activism, and cultural heritage — nurturing collective resilience and inspiring change.
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.
