Anita Bursheh shows cities from the inside. Her images of Amman are rooted in personal memory and heritage: rooftops she knows, neighbourhoods she grew up in, views that are deeply familiar to her. That intimacy comes through immediately: the photos pull you in, making you want to go to Amman yourself, to see these places, feel them, and disappear into them. This is how she shows Amman.

Much of her work comes from the Al Ashrafieh neighbourhood, where her grandparents’ house once stood. The area is closely tied to her childhood, but its meaning goes beyond the house itself. Anita often returns there to photograph in memory of her late uncle Emile, a person on the autism spectrum whose presence left a lasting mark on her life.

In this interview, Bursheh talks about how these experiences shaped her visual language, how photography became a way to document what feels fragile or overlooked, and why capturing rooftops, birds, and city views is less about nostalgia and more about staying connected to what formed her.

— Anita, I noticed that you mention identity a lot in your work, and your Instagram bio says daughter of the Levant.

— Yes, identity is something I think about constantly. First and foremost, I am Jordanian. I was born and raised in Jordan — it is my home, and I have a deep love for this country.

At the same time, I am very proud of my heritage and of the combination that makes me who I am. My father is Palestinian, and my mother is Syriac. I take pride in the mix of places, cultures, and histories that shaped me — and in being Levantine.

— And the views of Amman you capture are also about your heritage. They are taken from the point where your grandparents’ house was, in the Al Ashrafieh neighbourhood. What does this place remind you of?

— A lot. It reminds me of my childhood — the views, the atmosphere, everything. Being there immediately brings back that feeling.

This place really makes me feel something. And I think that is what people connect with most in my work, because I often hear that they can feel my spirit through my photos.

That is what I love most about what I do. I want to share what I am feeling in those moments, when I am there, when I take the shot. I want people to feel something with me, too.

It reminds me of the good times. Neighbours knew each other. People lived with a real sense of community. Not necessarily because they shared the same religion or background, but simply because life was different then. There was no social media, no constant distraction. People were more present.

I really miss that — the sense of community, the simplicity, the small interactions that made life feel connected.

I realise I romanticise that way of life a lot. But that is exactly why I enjoy going back to this part of the city. They are kind of a reminder of a safer, slower, more human rhythm of living. But I guess no matter where your childhood was, you will always feel nostalgic about those places.

— Could you tell me more about your grandparents’ house? Do you remember them? Who else lived in the house besides them?

— I never met my grandparents — they passed away before I was born. But their house remained. It became a family gathering place, even though they were no longer there.

There is also something I have never mentioned before in any interview. My uncle lived in that house with my aunt and her family. He had autism. His development stopped when he was around seven or eight years old, so even when he passed away in his sixties, he still had the mindset of a child.

Because people didn’t understand autism back then, he was treated very badly. Strangers bullied him, mocked him, treated him as if he were stupid or a shame. That is something I have carried with me my entire life. I still feel it very deeply.

I often wish I had been older while he was still alive — that I could have protected him, or made some real change so no one would hurt him, and he could live the normal life he deserved.

That house was especially meaningful to him. Even many years ago, when the family left the area, he refused to leave. It was his mother’s house, and he adored her. She was his angel and one of the few people who made him feel normal.

That is why going back to that area and taking photos feels so personal to me. It reminds me of him constantly. Being there makes me feel like he is present somehow — as if I am giving something back that he never received while he was alive.

So my photos of Al Ashrafieh are not only about nostalgia or the beauty of the city. They are also about the memory of my uncle, Emile.

— Could you share any memories of him?

— Yes, sure, I was very close to him.

He used to sit on the rooftop of the house, listening to Farid Al-Atrash, whom he adored, and watching the city below. The houses, the hills, the birds. The birds in my photos, especially, remind me of him.

He loved telling jokes — the silliest ones! And he would laugh so hard at them.

He loved telling us stories about his teachers at school, reliving those moments over and over again.

He was a genius with numbers and was so proud of it.

He had the kindest heart. He never really took anything anyone said to him badly. Maybe it was a coping mechanism — this belief that no one is bad, that everyone is nice. He just carried this pure way of seeing the world.

If you have ever seen the film I Am Sam with Sean Penn, that was exactly how my uncle was.

— Thank you for sharing that. And when did you first pick up a camera and start taking photos?

— I used to take photos all the time, even as a child. Back then, I didn’t think of it as a hobby or anything serious — I didn’t analyse it at all.

I remember travelling with my family when we still had film cameras, in the 90s and early 2000s. My dad would appoint me as the cameraman of the trip, which made me feel incredibly important — like I was in charge of documenting everything. Having the camera gave me this strange sense of authority, almost like power. But at the time, I never thought much of it. It was just something that felt natural.

I have also always loved films. I never just watched movies, I analysed them. Even TV commercials. As a kid, I would sit there thinking, why did they shoot it like this? It should have been done differently. I questioned everything I watched. That instinct was always there, even if I didn’t yet understand what it meant.

During my university years, I began travelling more outside Jordan — often alone. That gave me space to observe and to move at my own pace. I took a lot of photos then, mostly with my phone. This was around 2011 or 2012. I didn’t own a camera yet, but the urge to document was already constant.

My family noticed how much I loved it. My sister eventually gifted me my first camera — a Fujifilm. It reminded me of my dad’s old film camera, and that connection is what first drew me to the brand — long before I became a Fujifilm ambassador.

My dad was also a very good photographer. It had always been a hobby of his. His photos were all black and white, and he had this incredible archive that I slowly discovered as I grew older. At some point, I even found his old camera — a film Olympus — tucked away in a closet.

Once I had my camera, I never really put it down. From around 2015 onwards, I stopped taking photos with my phone altogether and worked only with the camera.

— When you take photos of Amman, what exactly do you want to show? What is your goal?

— I feel like Amman — or Jordan in general — lacks fantasy and documented cultural content. Whenever I research archival images from places like Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, or Palestine, I find so much documentation — photos, videos, visual history. With Jordan, whenever I try to dig deep, I do find things — but not much. And I feel like the country’s identity hasn’t been properly highlighted or documented.

But Jordan has an incredible history. There is also a living culture — an urban culture — and that is not very visible to the world. It is not well-documented.

When you think of Cairo, you feel something. When you think of Beirut, you feel something.

But when you think of Amman from the outside, it is sometimes hard to put your finger on its identity.

That is something I have always wanted to highlight — the character of Amman through my photography. I still have a lot to do. I need to document the lifestyle more, the people, the rhythms of the city. But my goal has always been to highlight Amman’s identity through photography and documentation.

— I also came across a photo from 2023, a collaboration with the graffiti artist. How did this collaboration come about? What was the idea behind it? Tell me everything.

— I have always wanted to create a fantasy around Amman. So I collaborated with a Jordanian graffiti artist, Mike V Derderian, aka "Sardine". His work is all over Amman. He has these incredible characters that I love. One is a robot. Another is a girl, a Jordanian geisha. She is rebellious and strong, as if she were a graffiti artist herself. And then there is a mermaid. I am obsessed with mermaids.

I specifically wanted to work with him because of these characters. I wanted to include them in my photography and create stories around them — stories that exist in Amman. To imagine how they move through the city, how they live there. That adds to the fantasy I want to build around Amman, and it helps portray the kinds of characters that could exist in the city.

The rooftop scene was like a prototype: the geisha and the robot just hanging out after a long day, sitting on a rooftop, worn out, bonding over their shared dislike of the world.

There is also a phrase written there: “Tashkīl Mazāri‘kum” (تشكيل مزارعكم). You see it written all over Jordan, usually with a phone number underneath. It’s basically an advertisement for agricultural or landscaping services — people who prepare land, mow, or manage farms. It’s everywhere on walls across the country. Over time, it kind of became a visual joke, almost a meme within the city.

So in this scene, the geisha and the robot wrote that phrase. They are exhausted, sitting there like, “whatever.” It is playful, ironic. A little rebellious.

And that is how the idea came about — building a fictional layer over the real Amman. Creating characters who live inside the city’s rooftops, walls, and night skies.

— You began by photographing Amman, but since then, your work has grown beyond that. Now we see other cities as well. One of your photos from Egypt, with the pyramids in the background, went viral. What is the story behind that shot?

— Egypt has a very special place in my heart. It is very much engraved in our culture because cinema in the Arab world kind of started there. Egyptian cinema was incredibly strong, especially from the 1930s — maybe even earlier. I can’t remember exactly, but it was definitely thriving by then.

Throughout our childhood, our parents loved Egyptian movies — especially the black-and-white ones. That era was really the golden age of Egyptian cinema. So we grew up surrounded by Egyptian culture: the films, the writers, the authors. We watched those movies with our parents, and we also read books by Egyptian novelists, who were incredibly talented.

I always fantasised about Egypt because I had seen its streets in movies and imagined them through books. Egypt was such a big part of our childhood imagination, even as we were growing up.

When I finally went there, I was honestly blown away. It was even more beautiful than I had imagined. I had never seen that perspective before — the one I captured in my photos. Usually, you just see the pyramids or the streets. But I had never seen the cityscape with the pyramids in the background like that. It felt surreal. I was so happy to be standing at that exact point, documenting that scene.