SARAAB is a collection of photographs taken in Wadi Rum and exhibited at Afaneen Gallery in Amman, Jordan as part of a curated presentation. The body of work has not been sold and remains held within the artist’s archive.

All images were captured within a two-hour window. Several photographs were taken while standing on the same pivot point one foot planted revealing two worlds at once: on one side of the peripheral, close quarters rendered with impeccable detail; with a simple turn of the body, the vastness of Wadi Rum unfolding in full.

SARAAB means mirage in Arabic, a word often associated with poetic illusion, distance, and the tension between what is seen and what is felt.

Wadi Rum is a landscape shaped by what was once a vast and ancient sea, bordered by towering sandstone mountains and open desert plains. Local Bedouin Tribes, known as the Zawaideh Tribe, speak of unclimbed mountains where traces of this past still surface, fragile seashells said to erode at the lightest touch.

This place is a major contributor to the Jordanian economy, and my ties to this desert are eternal. In Jordan, this is where school kids go for a camping trip, and it was the first true excursion I embarked on as a teenager with my single mother and my sister. That camping trip was organised through a modest group that charged us next to nothing, but in return cut the power generator every night from 8 p.m., shortly after dinner, until sunrise.

We didn’t know this in advance. Our electronics died, and so did the lights, leaving only starlight to illuminate our late-night laughter and conversations, surrounded by good company we had only just met. A group from all walks of life were threaded together by a shared spirit of adventure and escapism.

We all had city lives and city responsibilities, but in that vastness our true colors came to light. The cool softness of the sand brought our feet to happiness as we felt welcomed by the land. The starlight shone our path just enough that we could adequately see, but adequatley was enough, adequlately always was enough.