Meloni’s original aim was to connect the history of troubled countries with their current events to explore new ways of capturing uprisings against totalitarianism and the after-effects of colonial ventures. ‘My intent was to try, within the limits of visual language, to understand and rationalise a conflict— its roots and evolution—and thus position it within its historical context. The Islamic State’s emergence was a logical development, and I can potentially understand why many young men in Iraq, Syria and Libya decided to join. I asked myself many times: if I had been born Iraqi and my family was killed by US soldiers, what might I have done?’
We Don’t Say Goodbye is the result of a 10-year journey by Italian photographer Lorenzo Meloni across the Middle East and North Africa. Expecting to find and record the dawn of a new era of democratisation in the region, this journey turned into Meloni’s first conflict reportage which lasted a decade.
