To Pray Is To Wander About The Meaning Of Life

This project is a personal, unstructured collection of photos and videos from my daily walks. Noticing, wandering, questioning life’s meaning in the quiet poetry of the ordinary, a tribute to existence, solitude, connection, and the human condition.

This ongoing project is a personal and unstructured collection of photos and videos taken during my daily walks. It doesn’t follow a specific format or theme but flows naturally, capturing moments that feel meaningful or invite quiet reflection. Each frame is a simple meditation on the small and the profound, the fleeting and the eternal. It’s a visual exploration of prayer as an act of noticing, wandering through life’s questions and meanings in the everyday. In its essence, this work is also a tribute to the human condition, our fragility, our resilience, and the quiet beauty of our existence. It reflects the struggles and quiet victories we experience in our lives, often unnoticed, yet deeply profound.

The project was born out of a difficult period in my life, following the aftermath of the Beirut explosion (2020), when a large amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the port in Beirut exploded, causing at least 218 deaths, 7,000 injuries, and US$15 billion in property damage, as well as leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless. It left me injured and took away my home, my studio, and all of my equipment.

In a region where instability and danger can suffocate the creative spirit, I fell into a deep depression. The only way I could cope was by walking, with my camera in hand, capturing whatever felt important. It became a space where I could disappear into something larger than myself, where I could let go of the rush, the chasing, and the constant fear of missing out. I started to notice things I hadn’t seen before, not just the world around me, but the way the world speaks to us in quiet, unexpected ways.

Many of these photos are taken in my village, Joun, where I spend my weekends searching for a rhythm of life that allows me to breathe and reflect. It’s here, in this slower pace, that I found space for contemplation. This project, in its simplest form, is an offering to the world, a way of closing my eyes to truly see, of searching for spirituality in a place where art and life collide. And in this act of wandering with my camera, I found a kind of salvation. Not in the images themselves, but in the act of capturing them, of quietly observing the condition of existence, of being fully alive, even when we don’t have all the answers.