Sometimes, what the mind envisions cannot be lived out — especially in a society that denies certain identities the right to exist. Though ‘the personal is political’ may sound like a worn-out slogan, the Lebanese photographer Myriam Boulos gives it renewed depth and urgency. Boulos makes those hidden but pressing frameworks of society visible.

In her early series Nightshift (2015), Boulos stepped into Beirut’s nightlife—not in glossy clubs, but in the more industrial corners of the city. From behind the lens of her camera in the shadows of abandoned spaces, she captured that raw urge to go out, to let go—something close to revolution she could very well relate to, a collective exhale outside of the norm. Following this, Tenderness (2018) shifted focus from public nightlife to the intimate interior of private spaces: moments of softness, but also vulnerability and with that the threat of violence that remains hidden behind closed doors.

Foam Talent 2022 featured the work Tell the Trees to Smile, with which Boulos rose to international acclaim. In Foam Magazine #61, Róisín Tapponi writes about Boulos’ intimate documentation of city dwellers amongst the debris of an explosion which occurred in the port of Beirut on 4 August 2020. ‘Documenting the emotions of broken people, buildings and objects, Tell the Trees to Smile is a series of portraits of friends and strangers from all walks of life who have collectively been affected by the blast and ongoing economic problems in Beirut,’ writes Tapponi, adding: ‘Entering into dialogue with her subjects, Boulos captions the images with their words. The familiarity with which Boulos captures the city’s details on the fringes of the event illustrates her close relationship with the city, which is suffering as much as its inhabitants.’ 

Across much of her work, Boulos has used the camera’s flash to illuminate what is kept in the dark. But with What’s Ours (2023), Boulos stepped into daylight—literally and politically. Over a decade of crisis in Lebanon, she followed the lives of everyday people navigating corruption, collapse and resistance. At the heart of this story is the 17 October Revolution of 2019, when thousands of people from all walks of life took to the streets to demand change. Her images and diary fragments, compiled in her first photobook, document not just public upheaval but the toll it takes on her as both witness and participant.

Amidst the ongoing crises in Lebanon, Boulos began documenting the sexual fantasies of women and people socialised as women. The project, Sexual Fantasies (2021 – ongoing), emerged from a deeply personal need to create a space for self-liberation and resistance, free from patriarchal structures. By making these intimate stories and images visible, her portraits offer an alternative form of representation—one that shows bodies not solely as sites of suffering, but of desire, and where the participants reclaim narrative control, even if these narratives remain shaped by rape, abuse and other forms of suppressed personal and societal trauma.

Across her work, Myriam Boulos consistently transforms deeply personal experience into politically resonant visual narratives, while also reshaping our understanding of photojournalism itself. Her images hold space for the unseen, the silenced, and the suppressed. She doesn’t merely document others—she visually journals, using the camera as a mirror to reflect the fractures within herself, her country, and her generation. Her work reminds us that photography is not only a witness to history, but a site of resistance, a mirror of identity—and above all, a means of claiming what has long been denied: the right to be visible, and to define that visibility on one’s own terms.

MYRIAM BOULOS holds a master’s degree in photography from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts in 2015. Boulos took part in national and international exhibitions including at ICP (New York), Huis Marseille (Amsterdam), and l’Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris). Her work has been published in Aperture, Time Magazine, GQ Middle East, Vogue Arabia, and Vanity Fair France, among other publications. Boulos was awarded the Eugene Smith Fellowship, PHmuseum Women Photographers Grant, Grand prix ISEM, and is an Arab Documentary Photography Program and Joop Swart Masterclass alumni. In 2021 she joined Magnum as a nominee. In 2023 her book, What’s Ours, was published by Aperture. Boulos was a Foam Talent in 2022 and her portfolio was included in Foam Magazine #61: Talent⁠. 

Mirjam Kooiman is a curator and art historian at Foam Photography Museum in Amsterdam, where she focuses on contemporary photography and its intersections with digital culture, identity, and technology. With a background in Art History and Curating Arts and Culture, she has curated exhibitions featuring artists such as Ai Weiwei and Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and contributes regularly to Foam Magazine. Her work often explores themes like virtual reality, gaming, and postcolonial perspectives.