Phoenician Collapse

• Photographer
  Diego Ibarra Sanchez
• Agency / Studio
  Freelance Photographer
• Technical Info
  Canon Mark Iv, Manual.
• Photo Date
  2020

Lebanon sails adrift in history at the shores of the Marenostrum facing the twilight of the ancient empire of Phoenicia. The country has replaced sandbags (civil war, 1975-1990) with disinfectants while the country is straddling with unfolding financial and existential crisis. Decades of corruption and financial mismanagement by warlords-turned-politicians and a cabal of business elites combined with the war next door in Syria to plunge Lebanon's economy into its worst crisis in living memory.

Diego Ibarra Sánchez is a documentary photographer, based in Lebanon. Diego assumes a very critical stance regarding the use of images in our own society, defining this historical moment as «lobotomized era of “tourism” on the other’s pain»: in his work he endeavors to ensure that photography is no longer merely a window allowing a view on what happens in the world, but becomes a means to raise questions and generate reflections. Diego is very self-motivated, working on his own body of works while publishing many of his stories in numerous newspapers and magazines, such as The New York Times