Art and designאחלאם שיבלי

Ahlam Shibli

Ahlam Shibli is a Palestinian photographer born in Israel whose work explores home and belonging and documents Arab life in unrecognized villages in the Negev and Galilee.

born 1970Photographing unrecognized Bedouin villagesThe Trackers photo seriesThe Goter series

Occupation: photographer

Ahlam Shibli was born in 1970 in Shibli-Umm al-Ghanam

Ahlam Shibli was born in 1970 into a Bedouin family in the village of Shibli-Umm al-Ghanam. She describes herself as a Palestinian from Israel.

She graduated in social work from the University of Haifa in 1996. She studied photography at WIZO College in 1997. From 2000 to 2003 she did graduate studies in film and television at Tel Aviv University.

Her photographs deal with Arabs of Bedouin descent in Israel and with themes of home and belonging. Her series Unrecognised showed the Galilee village of Arab al-Na'im, where she worked as a social worker, and her series Goter showed Bedouin life around Beersheba. In 2005 she photographed Arab volunteers in the IDF Tracker Unit.

She also photographed LGBT people in several cities, caregivers and the elderly in Barcelona, and children in orphanages in Poland. She was the first Artist-in-Residence of the city of Acre. Her work has been shown at the São Paulo Biennial, documenta 12, documenta 14 and museums in Europe and Canada.