Afraid of losing her memory, Leila first picked up the camera as a tool to remember the details of her life, later growing to understand art’s ability to ensure others remember, too. As a Black Ethiopian-American Muslim who often saw the stories of her communities overlooked and oversimplified, she began to use her photography and writing to document them herself. Her mission took her to covering protests for immigrant rights and gun control, gathering narratives of identity formation and culture from the Ethiopian Diaspora, and writing about workers’ fight for increased wage and unionization for the Takoma Voice.
Creating projects to capture our nuances and better understand our contexts, she hopes to build active solidarity among our interconnected beings and contribute to our collective archive of this time.
Leila is currently based in the DMV area, but she is willing to travel for assignments and collaborative projects!
Feature: "Art & Activism | Leila Habib | Photography" by The Onyx Informer
Education:
Leila is pursing a medical degree at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She previously obtained a Masters of Public Health in Community-Oriented Primary Care from George Washington University and a Bachelors of Science in Behavioral Neuroscience with minor in Photojournalism from Northeastern University.