Dar El Rahma [2008]

Ain Saadé | Lebanon

Medium: Reportage | B&W 35mm | Ilford HP5 PLUS 400 |

Old age is the ultimate age of the human being that succeeds to mature age, also euphemistically called “the third age”. It is the last age of life unto which people are retired from work and sent to a hospice or a retirement house. “Dar El Rahma” hosts a group of elderly from different classes, religions, races, and ethnicity. The sister in charge was selective and allowed me to shoot the well-maintained rooms and the competently-sponsored patients.

To see, to feel, and to live and grasp the maximum details, I accidentally slipped into a banned floor, where the activities and behavior of the patients were unsettling. It took half an hour until someone attacked me from the back and took a film from my bag. Whether old, disabled, sick or mentally ill, or depressed or aggressive, the disparity of life-support between the patients is clear; some were served while others contributed or obeyed. By bringing facts, observations, and eyewitnesses, one can truly sense that life is never-ending, but inside such organizations this is actually the end of life.