Sophia Khalifeh: Recentering authentic representations of Arab women

Shapeshifting creative Sophia Khalifeh is a Dubai it-girl working with some of the industry’s biggest players and doing all of it, demurely, and with veritable passion. A Lebanese photographer, producer, and creative consultant, her work spans across the realms of beauty, apparel, editorial, and entertainment. Her portfolio is impressive to say the least: Sophia has been a producer and photographer for brands like Fendi, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Coach, Okhtein, with her personal work also featured on a plethora of platforms. Fervent in her faith for the MENA region, pushing for authentic portrayals of Arab women, and generally up to her ears in talent, Khalifeh’s place among the D100 was a no brainer. 

Though the young artist recently became one of the faces of a regional Canon campaign, her career in photography only began during the pandemic. The isolating conditions prompted her to take the leap: “The life and career I had built for myself in New York had crumbled, so at the time I really felt I had  nothing to lose and just started making things for fun,” Sophia told Dazed MENA. The artist reckoned with the visions she wanted to bring to life after moving back to Dubai; her photography network had dwindled with the relocation. Sophia decided to take matters in her own hands, using her professional groundwork in fashion to see her ideas through. “I just started taking the pictures myself. From there it just grew, and so did my love for the medium.”

Shooting primarily in Southwest Asia and North Africa, Sophia uses the natural landscape of the region to supplement her aesthetic choices. “Nature and space play a big part in my work, and placing women within that to me is very visually harmonious,” the photographer shares. There’s a tender allure to all of her shots. Sophia presses her subjects close to the viewer, inviting us to know them. This is a deliberate choice, she tells us; an intentional softening of the otherwise detached indifference rendering Arab women. I hope by creating things that are an extension of my inner world, as an Arab woman myself, I can play a small part in capturing the beauty of SWANA women in a way that feels exciting, soft, and lived in.” 

Still, Sophia is in the midst of reconfiguring her creative practice, finding new ways to nourish this impulse in her. “I think I am currently in a space where I am reshaping the type of artist I want to be and that has been daunting and exciting at the same time,” the photographer discloses. “I feel this year has just been me grieving the artist I have built my career on, and now I am trying to figure out what I want to be next.”

The political heartbreak and tumult of the last year has prompted a critical self-evaluation for the Lebanese artist, who is no longer content in the comfort zones of her established sphere. “The one thing that I have been coming back to is figuring out how I can make something that is helpful to others,” Sophia imparts. “I feel like the political state of many countries in the region over the last year has popped this metaphorical bubble I have allowed myself to live in, especially as I move in fashion and luxury spaces, and pushed me to analyse the ways in which I can be of use and contribute to something that feels more grounded and human to me.”

Ultimately, Sophia recognises the value of the region, and hopes more creatives within it would take the reins and have faith in their own projects. Not interested in the relegation of the region to the peripheries of the global creative scene, Sophia trusts in its trajectory and hopes artists will embrace the challenge of original innovation.“I would love to see more global investment and for regional branches and brands to take more risks with their large scale projects,” Sophia explains. “I think people first wanted to prove that the market here is valuable and therefore may have gone a more traditional or commercial route with their campaigns—but I feel we are no longer in that space anymore. The Middle East is economically a very important market space in fashion and beauty and I would love to see more room for innovation and weird and ambitious concepts.”