Rehab Eldalil

The Longing Of The Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken (2012-2022)

The Longing Of The Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken (2012-2022) explores the notion of belonging and the interconnectedness between people and land that shapes this notion. Over a span of 10 years, I collaborated with the Bedouin community of South Sinai, Egypt to explore the notion of belonging. The Bedouin community defines this notion through their intertwined attachment to land—they are its eternal keepers. The community are participants in the creative process, contributing with their traditional mediums such as embroidery and poetry.

The result is a dance, a visual conversation on the continuous human process of searching for home and a celebration of the indigenous experience that has long been seen through a romanticized gaze. The final outcome is a complementary collection of photographs, written content, embroidered photographs on fabric and photographic paper, artifacts, sound and video.

I believe it’s a common human emotion to seek a definition of one’s identity, yet its complexity is often ignored, creating flattened labels and othering. The project challenges past colonial, orientalist and exotic narratives told of the Bedouins specifically and of the indigenous communities at large. It advocates for reshaping the representation of native and non-western communities in future narratives.

In its universal form, the project questions what it means to belong, what is this indescribable connection to the land that we all long for and the indigenous experience that is filled with both sorrow and celebration. It invites the audience to examine their own idea of belonging while acknowledging the community’s voice, consent and collaboration in the process. The project is a contemporary Bedouin archive woven by the people themselves and my opportunity to reconnect to my indigenous Bedouin ancestry by collaborating with and learning from the existing community.

In 2022, the project received the World Press Photo Award and in early 2023, the project was published as a book. Since then, it has been exhibited worldwide advocating for the indigenous voice and inviting the audience to reflect on their sense of identity and become part of the dialogue.

Up until the 1990s, women were prohibited from being seen by men from other tribes without their consent. As technology evolved, the awareness that an image might be circulated on the internet and accessed by people beyond one’s control escalated this concern. This led some women to refuse to ever be photographed for fear of losing control of how and to whom they’re represented.

In this collaborative process with the female Bedouins, every woman I photograph adds embroidery to her portrait or to a photograph she chooses printed on fabric. In the process, she freely reveals or conceals the contents of the photograph using the traditional medium of embroidery, taking full control over her representation in the project. The result is a visual dialogue between my photographs and each woman’s embroidering identity.