MAke a wish

Dates

2011 - 2016
Author

Loulou d’Aki
Topics Portrait, Landscape, War & Conflicts

“This is just a dream, but fortunately dreams do come true.” Cyrus P., 15, Tehran, Iran.A photo essay looking at the hopes and dreams of youth, aiming to create a testimony of our time.

It’s a rainy November morning in Gaza and a truce has just been announced after 8 days of fighting. A young man stands in the rubbles of what is left of his home, destroyed in an air strike just an hour before the war ended. His name is Ahmed, he is 18 years old, the son of a fisherman. He wants to live in peace and go to college but we are in the Gaza strip and dreams have their limits here, you often have the feeling of being caught up in a game where you always turn out the looser.

MAKE A WISH is a photo essay looking at the hopes and dreams of youth, aiming to create a testimony of our time. It’s inspired by the fact that youth should be the age of infinite possibilities. Most of the MAKE A WISH project has been shot in the Middle East and in situations linked to the Arab Spring revolution or in conflict zones where youth too often is derived of it’s right to be young.

The Arab Spring catapulted a taste of freedom in people across a region so long affected by dictators, Western foreign policies gone awry and poor social development. Spring turned to summer, fall and winter, months turned to years and the original revolution into something much different from the ideals of freedom shouted at squares across the region. When I set out to work on this project, I did so with the assumption that youth is an age of infinite possibility when aspiration is not yet conditioned by experience. As the work evolved I began to understand until which extent aspirations are conditioned by the society in which we live and the circumstances under which we grow up.

Make a Wish was shot in the Palestinian territories and Israel, in Turkey, Iran, Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, across the Balkan route and in Greece. It consists out of landscapes, details and portraits of youngsters who write down their dreams in my notebook.

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

Wall in a private building in Khan Yonis, Gaza strip shows signs of shelling after an Israeli airstrike during 8-day operation Pillar of defense.

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

Abdallah Al-Rhaman, 19 works with his brother Ahmed, together they make a living by performing with horses in weddings and ceremonies, just like their father used to do. When asked about his dreams and future aspirations he says: “ To stay with my horse all the time, all my life. My life is horses. ”

© Loulou d’Aki - View on an empty space still burning after hit in an Israeli air strike during the Pillar of defense.

i

View on an empty space still burning after hit in an Israeli air strike during the Pillar of defense.

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

Dorna is an art student. She does not feel free in Iran and studies German so that she can eventually continue her life in Berlin. When asked about her future dreams and aspirations she says: “ I want to be professional in all ways and all jobs. I want to conclude all I do perfectly. In this way I can make my choices and not leave anything undone. Time is passing and each moment I live is a fight to be in the present. To work in an every day routine, to do my best and to understand the present in order to live fully, peacefully with nature. ”

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

A couple of men pass by the remains of what used to be the National Democratic Party’s landmark, torched on January 28th, 2011 during the escalations that came to topple Hosni Mubarak.

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

Maryam Sadeghi, 20, studies illustration at the Academy of Art in Tehran. “ I do not have many wishes because I got everything I wanted, but many little wishes do exist...My last wish...is death. I came to this egoistic world where everybody think about themselves…I hope that when I die, I shall find the world that I was always looking for. ”

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

Two Turkish women talk on a lawn while president Erdogan delivers a speech during a mass rally a day after protesters were evicted from Gezi park in Istanbul with the help of riot police and teargas.

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

T’s commissioned work for the museum in Qeshm city: a miniature Lenj on display in a shared bedroom behind the shipyard where he and other paperless workers from Pakistan live.

© Loulou d’Aki - A combat soldier alone in the rain during an exercise.

i

A combat soldier alone in the rain during an exercise.

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

An Aghan boy sits by the harbour in Mytillini where he and his friends wait to get a ticket for the next ferry to Athens. When asked about his future dreams and visions he says: ’ I left my home in Afghanistan where the Talibans make life so hard. When I come to Europe my dream is to become a football player and join Real Madrid.’

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

A poster of Yasser Arafat inside the print section of Industrial Islamic Orphanage School in the Old City Muslim quarter of Jerusalem.

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

Nachman Gallagher is the second son of a Jewish mother and an Irish father who converted from Catholicism to Judaims. Nachman is an excellent drummer, he plays everything from rock to jazz and klezmer. Most of the time, however, he plays hassidic music in religious weddings-to make a living. The Gemara (the part of the Talmud that comprises rabbinical analysis and commentary on the Mishna) says that one sometimes has to do work one does not loveif it helps one to earn the daily bread. When asked about his future dreams and aspirations he says: ’’ I want to become a somebody.’’

© Loulou d’Aki - Passengers, most of whom are refugees, disembark a ferry coming from Lesvos at arrival in Pireus port of Athens at dawn.

i

Passengers, most of whom are refugees, disembark a ferry coming from Lesvos at arrival in Pireus port of Athens at dawn.

© Loulou d’Aki - Cairo cat on a pile of jute bags in Mukkatam, also called Garbage city, in Cairo.

i

Cairo cat on a pile of jute bags in Mukkatam, also called Garbage city, in Cairo.

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

Ahmed Zayed, an 18-year old fisherman, stands in the rubbles of what used to be his home in Salateeh area, Gaza strip-hit in an israeli airstrike a few hours before the truce between Israel and Hamas after the 8-day operation Pillar of Defense. When asked about his future dreams and aspirations he says: “ To live in peace and go to college”.

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

Sahar walks through an abandoned movie set on Qeshm island in the Persian gulf. She likes to spend her winters here, away from the Iranian mainland where life is more strict and controlled. When asked about her future dreams and aspirations she says: ’’ I would like to open a little place of my own here, together with my partner. ’’

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

Usama, 21 has been an active member of El Nasser Salah El Dine brigades during 4 years. When asked about his future dreams and aspirations he says: “ That all my land comes back to the Palestinian people. And to go to Jerusalem. I want it so bad”.

© Loulou d’Aki - Image from the MAke a wish photography project

i

A discarded aluminium sheet lies outside Moria camp on Lesvos island where refugees are stuck since the Greek/Macedonian border closed.

© Loulou d’Aki - View over a mosque at dusk in the Sana’a Old City, Yemen.

i

View over a mosque at dusk in the Sana’a Old City, Yemen.

© Loulou d’Aki - Down by the water, Iranian girls in chador take pictures of each other at sunset on Kish island.

i

Down by the water, Iranian girls in chador take pictures of each other at sunset on Kish island.

Latest Projects

Project

Proof Of Existence
Project

Horizon
Project

I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears
Project

try, take time
Project

BUY NOTHING
Project

Unimportant Message