About

# DRAFT — argue with it. Delete any line you don't want; nothing here is load-bearing. # Structure: your voice opens, facts sit in the middle, your voice closes. # Register rule: no adjectives on the hard parts. The reader supplies those, and # they'll do it better than we could. The moment it reaches for sympathy, the # biography becomes more interesting than the photographs — and then it wins.

Hi, my name is Beneyam Hassen, and I'm an Artist.

There's not much to say about who I am; I'm still deciding, I'll know with my last breath. My work is evidence of that process, of the change in myself and in the world.

I'm a social documentarian. I photograph what goes unnoticed — the choir's routine before the service, the drummer putting down his sticks, the footsteps left behind in the snow. The small actions that push the larger story along.

People call me Ben because they can't pronounce Beneyam. I've always rolled with it. I'd rather you didn't.

I was born in a refugee camp in Djibouti. My father had left Ethiopia after dropping out of school to fight in a war. My mother wanted to own a shop. Neither of them got the life they planned. I was raised in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

I was going to be a lawyer, for the people still in the camp. I'm doing this instead.

If you appear in a photograph on this site and would like a copy of it, or would like it taken down, write to me.

Follow me along on my journey of becoming,

To what?

We'll find out together.

Contact

·[email protected]
Email

·>@beneyam.hassen
Instagram

·>Beneyam Hassen
YouTube

·>Beneyam Hassen
LinkedIn

·
# ── DECISIONS ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

·
#

·
# 1. PRONUNCIATION. If you want the site to teach people to say your name, tell

·
# me how it's said and I'll set it after the name line — small, in the sans,

·
# not a phonetic-alphabet lecture. I'm not inventing one.

·
#

·
# 2. "no child should fight in." Your TED line was "dropped out of high school

·
# to fight in a war no child should fight in." I cut the clause. It's the one

·
# place the writing reaches for a verdict, and the flat version is stronger —

·
# but it's your father and your sentence. Say the word and it goes back.

·
#

·
# 3. "Neither of them got the life they planned." The most interpretive line

·
# here. It earns its place because it's the hinge between your parents and

·
# your subject matter — you photograph people whose lives were decided

·
# somewhere else. Cut it if it feels like too much.

·
#

·
# 4. "I was going to be a lawyer, for the people still in the camp. I'm doing

·
# this instead." This is the strongest thing on the page and also the most

·
# exposed. It tells a stranger exactly why you point a camera at Tallevast

·
# without ever mentioning Tallevast. If one line survives edits, this one.

·
#

·
# 5. THE TAKEDOWN LINE. This is the ethics question from hours ago, finally

·
# answered in one sentence. It costs nothing and it's the thing a curator

·
# notices. Keep unless you have a reason.

·
#

·
# 6. AMHARIC. Your name in Ge'ez, once, somewhere on this page — that's an

·
# option, not a suggestion. It needs a second font loaded only here.

·
#

·
# 7. EXHIBITIONS AND PRESS. Not written yet. Tallevast was an exhibition,

·
# Boston Review published on it, Williams printed your work. That's a short

·
# section at the foot of this page or its own page — tell me which.

·
#

·
# 8. @portrait FILENAME — add this line and drop the file in content/about/

·
# once you've chosen a picture of yourself.