In 'ELSY', Ziad Mazraany Turns His Lens Towards Someone Very Close to Home

Some of the most personal stories are the ones sitting right in front of us. For Lebanese filmmaker and award-winning photographer Ziad Mazraany, his latest photographic project begins with his cousin Elsy, a 37-year-old artist with Down syndrome who has loved painting, crafting, colour and being in front of the camera since she was a child.

The resulting series, simply titled ELSY, is a collaboration between the two, built around creativity, identity and the freedom to be seen as yourself. It is also deliberately less interested in defining Elsy through Down syndrome than in introducing us to the person in front of the camera: a woman, an artist and an individual with her own character, confidence and creative voice.

“Through ELSY, I wanted to create a visual space where she could simply exist as herself, expressive, creative, confident, and unapologetically present.”

Mazraany grew up watching his cousin find her own language through creativity.

“Growing up, I watched her find her own ways of expressing herself, through painting, crafting, color, and the simple joy of posing in front of a camera,” he explains. “Art has always felt natural to her. It is a space where she can be completely herself, without explanation or limitation.”

That history changes the dynamic of the photographs. Mazraany isn't approaching Elsy as an unfamiliar subject, and Elsy isn't simply being documented. Their existing relationship created a level of familiarity and trust that allowed the project to become a genuine collaboration, resulting in photographs he describes as intimate, playful and honest. For Mazraany, the process also offered a different way of seeing someone he has known all his life.

“Creating this project together became much more than photographing her. It became a collaboration between us and a way for me to see Elsy beyond the familiar role of my cousin.”

“In front of my lens, I witnessed her confidence, sensitivity, humor, and the unique way she sees and responds to the world around her.”

Representation can easily become reductive when a person's disability becomes the entire story told about them. ELSY consciously moves in the opposite direction.

“Every image carries a part of her personality,” Mazraany says. “Nothing is about hiding or defining her through Down syndrome; instead, the project is about celebrating the person, the artist, and the woman in front of the camera.”

“Through ELSY, I wanted to create a visual space where she could simply exist as herself, expressive, creative, confident, and unapologetically present.”

It's an approach that sits naturally within Mazraany's wider practice. Working between photography and film, the Lebanese image-maker has built his work around identity, culture, human connection and personal narratives, often using intimate stories to examine conventional ideas surrounding beauty, representation and belonging. His work has appeared across PhotoVogue Italy, Harper's Bazaar Arabia, Fashion Trust Arabia and other platforms, and in 2025 he received the Tasweer Single Image Award from Qatar Museums. But ELSY brings those questions particularly close to home.

There is a tenderness to the idea behind the series, but Mazraany doesn't want that tenderness to turn Elsy into an object of sympathy. Instead, her creativity and personality are allowed to lead. At its core, he describes ELSY as “a celebration of being seen for who you are,” one that hopes to challenge familiar perceptions of beauty and representation through creative self-expression.

And perhaps the clearest way of understanding the project comes from what Mazraany says Elsy has taught him:

“Elsy reminds me that creativity does not require permission, explanation, or boundaries. It comes from emotion, curiosity, passion, and the freedom to be seen exactly as you are.”

With ELSY, that freedom belongs as much to the woman in front of the camera as it does to the photographer behind it.

Discover more from the artist, here