We Don’’t Say Goodbye

We Don’t Say Goodbye is the result of a 10-year journey by Italian photographer Lorenzo Meloni across the Middle East and North Africa.

Expecting to find and record the dawn of a new era of democratisation in the region, this journey turned into Meloni’s first conflict reportage which lasted a decade. Meloni’s original aim was to connect the history of troubled countries with their current events to explore new ways of capturing uprisings against totalitarianism and the after-effects of colonial ventures.

’My intent was to try, within the limits of visual language, to understand and rationalise a conflict-- its roots and evolution--and thus position it within its historical context. The Islamic State’s emergence was a logical development, and I can potentially understand why many young men in Iraq, Syria and Libya decided to join. I asked myself many times: if I had been born Iraqi and my family was killed by US soldiers, what might I have done?’

Magnum photographer Lorenzo Meloni (b 1983) is an Italian photographer who makes work concerned with deeper themes such as history and post-colonialism. In 2011, after graduation he joined the Italian photographic agency Contrasto. He lived in Beirut from 2012 to 2014, dedicating himself to documenting the aftermath of the fall of Gaddafi in Libya, the conflict in Syria and its impact in Lebanon, between 2014 to 2016. His work currently focuses on the consequences of the Sykes-Picot agreement and the military and political intervention of the West in the Middle East. His work has been exhibited in festivals worldwide including the Venice Biennale, Visa pour L’Image, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Boutographies and Fotoleggendo and has been featured in global publications including The Telegraph, TIME, Le Figaro, Vanity Fair amongst others.