In early 2018 pictures from Syria appeared on my Facebook feed.
Pictures of a brutal civil war unseen in the press.
They underlined how random, shocking and fragile life is.
The quotidian suddenly destroyed in a nanosecond. The world as you knew it gone forever.
imagine that.
A population ravaged as a result of their desires for change and for having the bad luck of being born in Syria.

It could have been any of us.

I began communicating with Abdul, in simple english on facebook.
“Keep posting your pictures!!” I would message questions;
When?
Where?
How many dead?
How are you surviving?
What are the conditions?

We began a very erratic dialogue.

From Syria to Turkey to France.
About a year and a half after our first contact I met Abdul for coffee.
He was 22.
He showed me his pictures. They were devastating, not only the events they depicted, but the pictures themselves. They were piercing, honest, humble and sometimes, beautiful.
He brought human tragedy into my living room and I could not look away.
Abdul was calm. Wide eye and curious.
Happy to be alive.

Five minutes before my meeting at the café i opened my computer to the New York Times.
On the front page was a striking photograph of an urban scene of war.
A car in flames, lying on it’s side. a man holding a club with another standing by.
A closer look revealed it was Paris. The Yellow Vests on the Champs Elysée.
An even closer look, in the tiny print beneath the picture: Abdul Eassa.

Welcome to France Abdul, welcome to Europe.

Hally Pancer
Paris 2022