Proposal

I propose to use the professional Alexia Grant to broaden the scope of a years’ worth of documenting Yemen’s uprising:  I intend to to photograph Sana’a’s citizens and their efforts to recover, rebuild, and usher in a new government following a singular year of turmoil, hope, war, and large-scale peaceful protest.

“The real revolution begins now.” 

Since arriving in early February 2011, I have heard these very words spoken by young men and women, by revolutionaries who months earlier would have been identified as university students, tribesmen, or simply as ‘shabab’ (youth).  I heard these words when Sana’a’s pro-democracy protesters’ camp first became a genuine cross-section of Yemeni society in March; in June, when now-outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh left the country for medical treatment; and, more recently, when workers and soldiers across the country went on strike at government ministries to demand the exit of corrupt general managers.

Yemenis are aware of how their country is perceived from without.  For the country’s youth in particular, it stings to know that Yemen is perceived as a potential threat, as a backwards country ever-poised to become a haven for terrorists.  Before mass protests filled the streets and before Yemen became a full participant in the Arab Spring, it was a sting that people felt they must bear.  What I increasingly encountered during my first weeks and months in Sana’a was a sting that burned.  Learning lessons from Tunisia and Egypt on the fly, not just tactics and indignation but aspirations were gained and hope rejuvenated. 

Since early February of 2011, I have been wholly present in Yemen.  I have carried and used my camera and 28mm and 50mm prime lenses throughout.  What at times seemed like a limitation I soon realized to be an advantage:  my camera gear compelled me to move closer, always closer, to the events and people that surrounded me.

 With elections and a transfer of power scheduled for February 21, 2012, the possibility of a new beginning looms.  The hope that real change in Yemen could be won peacefully continues to be in constant danger of going unnoticed.

 I have arranged to stay in Yemen for another year.  In this time, I plan to continue to document the larger picture of the nation’s future in progress.  The Yemenis I encounter both with my eyes and my camera lens do not need to be humanized.  They simply need to be seen.

 I will concentrate my efforts on the city I know best here - Sana’a.  It is my intention to document the ways in which Sana’a transitions from an extended Arab Spring, and from war and multiple humanitarian crises.

 I arrived in Sana’a as a teacher; one year later, I can identify myself as a paid photographer.  I have exhibited my work abroad and have contributed photos to some of the world’s largest media outlets.  My lack of professional experience long ago gave way to enthusiasm, dedication, and an awareness that my unique position in Yemen as a Western photojournalist is itself meaningful.  I have seen foreign photographers come and go, even as the situation here remains fluid and ever-changing.  To continue to document not just the results of Yemen’s uprising, but the nature of the its people - their lives, their hopes, their lives and their moments - will give me the opportunity to show more than shirtless, screaming Arab protesters and a known breeding ground for terrorists. 

 The story of Yemen’s period of change did not end when the world’s cameras slowly but surely drifted away.  I will create a photo documentary that traces what happens to the opposition protesters’ camp, where photos of slain protesters have been pasted upon every conceivable surface.  But I will also focus on the Old City of Sana’a, where yesterday’s most ardent Saleh supporters have begun to stage demonstrations after going without water for weeks.  I will photograph the schools of the rich, as well as of the poor, where classrooms often hold over one hundred students at a time. 

 While Western governments continue to express concern over the outcomes of events in Yemen, with my camera in hand, I am fully committed to documenting not only the conditions that Yemenis face in the months to come, but also how their hopes for the future survive or fold in a most human way.