As part of the Global Open Call “Women by Women”, PhotoVogue has awarded three grants to outstanding participants: Myriam Boulos (Lebanon), Alice Poyzer (UK), and Laila Annmarie Stevens (USA).
We talked with Myriam Boulos who received the Outstanding Vision Grant, awarded to an artist pushing creative boundaries.
Myriam Boulos is an artist from Lebanon who graduated with a master’s degree in photography from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts in 2015. In 2021 she joined Magnum as a nominee and in 2023 she published the book What’s ours with Aperture.
Sexual Fantasies is a work based on an open call Boulos launched, inviting women to share their sexual fantasies anonymously. From the texts she received, she created images that function not only as tools to explore female desire but also as a lens through which to interpret the socio-political landscape of Lebanon. Boulos investigates the intimate realm to reveal a multifaceted, often hidden image of her country. Through this collaborative approach, she reclaims the female body and frees it from the dominant narratives that associate Arab bodies with sadness and pain. By centering the body, its needs and desires, Myriam Boulos also addresses other untold subjects such as trauma, shame, rape, eating disorders, and neurodivergence.
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How did you first approach photography?
When I was 5, I had a fuchsia camera that I loved, and my younger brother threw it away from the car window on the highway. This incident felt like a soap sliding off my hand, like reality escaping from me. 10 years later, I met a girl at school who became one of my closest friends. She had this sophisticated camera and I fell in love with this medium. I told my mother I wanted the same camera, she laughed and told me that I had to train my gaze -learn how to look at things, people, and myself- before buying an expensive camera. I started to use a small one to get closer to reality.ù
During my first years as a photographer I only took pictures at night, in black and white. I think that the nightlife is similar to revolutions: It is about collectively exteriorizing things that we are taught to bottle up. Since then I’ve been taking pictures in the streets and in spaces of intimacy, where we are most exposed to both physical and emotional violence. With my direct flash I try to literally put a light on things that are oppressed and normalized when they shouldn’t be.
How did the process of creating images from the words women shared with you come about?
I have been wanting to explore sexual fantasies in my work since I discovered my own.
A few months after the Beirut port explosion, I posted an open call that said: “If you’re a woman or you have been socialised as a woman and you want to share your sexual fantasies, send me an e-mail.”
I wanted to focus on something that was present within me, rather than something automatically imposed on us by the situation in the country. It was also a way to focus on our desires instead of our normalised pain. So every time someone contacts me, I ask them where they want to be photographed, what they want to show or hide, and how they want to be represented, and we create the images together.
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What was an unexpected outcome of this project — were there stories you didn’t expect to hear?
I didn’t have any preconceived ideas when I started the project. What I try to do is to listen to the people I photograph, and it is actually one of the (many many) things that interest me in photography: The image as an encounter.
What did you learn about women’s desire in your region, and how do you think your work can expand or challenge the current conception of it?
By documenting our sexual fantasies, we inevitably explore socio political issues that are oppressed and normalized. Our sexual fantasies (in the region but anywhere else too) consist of entire worlds we are taught to hide and be ashamed of, even though they are not hurting anyone (since they only exist in our minds). Meanwhile, the real violence happening outside our heads - especially Israel’s aggressions on Lebanon and its ongoing genocide in Palestine- is the one that is normalized when it shouldn’t be. In this project that becomes a sort of collective diary, I try to document the intersectional oppression on our bodies and land.
What projects are you currently working on or planning for the future?
I am still working on this ongoing project!
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