Studio L Nour
Brooklyn, New York 2021–2023
Studio L Nour was a community-based photography studio and gathering space located in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, a neighborhood home to one of New York’s most vibrant Arab diasporic communities. Founded in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic by Egyptian American photographer Anthony Hamboussi and his family, the studio emerged from a personal and collective need to build visibility and belonging—particularly for their daughter, who seldom saw herself reflected in the predominantly white environment of her school.
Inspired by the photo studios of twentieth-century Cairo, where families once sat for portraits that became heirlooms of memory and continuity, Studio L Nour reimagined that tradition in the context of the contemporary diaspora. The studio provided a safe, welcoming environment for neighbors to gather, share tea, laughter, and conversation, and to make portraits that honored their presence and stories. It offered youth and adult photography workshops, on-location sessions, and an open-door space for rest, connection, and creative exchange.
The project extended the political and curatorial vision of Hamboussi’s 2019 exhibition Our Land, which responded to institutional erasures by centering artists from North Africa and West Asia and their diasporas. While Our Land reclaimed the landscape as a site of resistance and belonging, Studio L Nour grounded those ideas in the everyday lives of Brooklyn’s Arab and BIPOC residents—transforming the politics of representation into an act of care and community-making.
Over its two-year span, Studio L Nour produced an intimate portrait archive of the neighborhood, documenting the resilience, diversity, and intergenerational life of its community. Though the physical studio closed in 2023, its spirit continues through L Nour Editions, a nonprofit photo press dedicated to publishing underrepresented photographers from the SWANA (South West Asia and North Africa) region and its diaspora. Together, Studio L Nour and L Nour Editions form a continuum of image-making, education, and cultural preservation—a foundation for ongoing collective and photographic work.