Brooklyn-based photographer Ibrahem Hasan’s collaborative photo book is an ode to love, loss and mentorship.
Photographer Ibrahem Hasan’s new photo book explores the importance of mentors in his coming of age on the south side of Chicago. More broadly, Love Is Why is a profound mosaic of inspiration and a visual love letter powered by Black voices.
The work draws on contributions from loved ones, contemporaries, and strangers, giving it a collaborative and communal feel.
“I was developing the concept and I was making the book simultaneously,” Hasan told Dazed. “It just kind of started to form itself as I was building it.”
Hasan’s mentorship began at the open-air market on Chicago’s Maxwell Street, a melting pot of cultures, smells and tastes. As a young Palestinian boy, this place and the people within it had a lasting impact.
The photographer told Dazed,
“What’s interesting about those mentors – Djuan Smith, Lewis Books, Record Sam, and Taco – is that I didn’t know I was having mentorship… Only when I got into my adulthood, I started to realise the influences and the learning that I had from them.”
Check out some of the powerful pages from Love Is Why below:
All proceeds from the 500 limited edition copies will purchase laptops for the students of the Brooklyn Democracy Academy.
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