Humans of DamascusHumans of Damascus

Rana Kataf tells us the story of how Humans of Damascus came to be, she used her camera and her voice to show the world the resilience, diversity, and richness of her culture and her people.

“A lot of people know me as the woman documenting the Humans of Damascus. I was born in the UAE in 1985 & raised there for 10 years., then spent 8 years in Damascus and attended the Damascus American Community School, a small & very internationally diverse school of about 360 & only 64 of us were Syrians.

Back then, I was physically in Damascus, but nothing else. I lived in a bubble with no attachment to the city. After graduating from the American University of Beirut with a Bachelor’s in Food Science and Management, I resettled in Damascus by 2008 & 3 years later, boom, the war. Should I leave and earn a Master’s Degree? Should I stay here & live the unknown? The war progressed & worsened, and I stayed. Like all Syrians, I feared the loss; of the city, my identity, my culture, but most importantly, the place we called home.

I had an identity crisis for a while. What seemed worse than the war itself, was a battle I believed I had to fight for myself & others. I bought a camera and began taking photos of Damascus. It progressed to the tiniest of details. I had in mind the stories of European cities that were rebuilt post WW2. People documented them & women rose to rebuild their cities. I wanted to be the woman people remembered for preserving the memory of a city that seemed forgotten & who built a community.

Humans of Damascus is a Facebook platform that portrays the stories shared by locals, and details of craftsmanship and archival work from experts of our Syrian history. It all began in 2016, the year Aleppo was attacked severely, fearing that the same would have happened in Damascus.

Love requires both humanity & the city to reside in one another. I knew this was Damascus’s secret, the oldest inhabited city in the world. I changed the perspectives of people regarding the protection of our heritage at a time of war, who believed it wasn’t a priority. I met incredibly valuable people, was featured in numerous articles & news outlets including CNN and even had a lecture in Berlin & showed the world what a Damascene woman was capable of. That was the climax of the journey I have chosen in pursuit of finding myself.”