Ghaleb Cabbabé was born in Beirut in 1978 during the Civil War. A trained architect, he lived in inspirational environments such as Oman and Vietnam before carrying several missions for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan, South Sudan, Congo and Sri Lanka. He is now based in Bangkok, focusing on documentary photography.
In 2012, he studied photography at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Ghaleb won the Byblos Bank Award for Photography in 2013. In 2020, 2018 and 2016 he was shortlisted at Athens Photo Festival and his work was among the top-rated entries in the Magnum Photography Awards and Lens Culture submissions. Ghaleb’s work has also been featured in The Photographic Journal, published in the book “An ageless Lebanon”, and exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Paris, Beirut, and Prague.
Sunday
A large parking lot in the middle of a tentacular city, pickup trucks, makeshift “homes”, lucky charms, tattoos, mobile monks, and smoking grilled pork skin…
This series is part of a documentary project shot on film in Bangkok portraying construction workers from Thailand and Myanmar in their little free time. During the week, they are busy building the nearby high-end condominiums. Ironically, as days go by and new buildings rise, even their own “leisure” space is shrinking.
Some of them work even on Sunday. This selection focuses on the construction workers driving their pick-up trucks at the end of their long, dusty, and tiring shift. The light at this specific moment of the day reveals in a way a sense of relief behind their tinted windshields.
To view more of Ghaleb’s work please visit their website.