Before today, before wars, before extremism and political interests, there was a Middle East born of a millennia-old culture, with scents and exotic landscapes.
Before today is an invitation to slow down, observe, and allow oneself to be captivated by a selection of photographs taken by the writer and traveler Freya Stark during her early travels in Iran, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq (1927-1935).
The black-and-white images reveal the Orient that Freya Stark loved: not a place of crowded monuments, but a space made of endless horizons and stone silences. A suspended journey where the lands unveil themselves in their purest form, stripped of newsworthy events and returned to their beauty.
The landscape and architecture are just as much protagonists of the exhibition as the human detail, in a perfect balance between the space and those who inhabit it.
Stark's interest in humanity was profound: her ability to speak local dialects allowed her to make direct contact with individual communities, transforming each shot into a meeting. Even when the human figure appears small in the face of the grandeur of architecture and horizons, it remains the beating heart of the scene, a witness to an intimate and respectful bond with the territory.
