Neyland, Wales, United Kingdom
Originally from Alexandria, I have lived and worked in Pembrokeshire, Wales, since 2007. I graduated with a 1st class honours degree in Photography from Carmarthen School of Art in 2016 and completed a Master’s in Documentary Photography with Distinction at USW in 2023. My work has been exhibited at the Mission Gallery, the Waterfront National Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery, London, where I had a portrait included in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2018. I’ve been shortlisted for various awards, and in 2023, won the Canon Student Development programme. In 2024, I won the Polaroid/Magnum X Award and the STAR Award for a photobook dummy, set for publication in 2025. Three of my works are in the National Museum of Wales' permanent collection, and in 2023, I was commissioned by the Government Art Collection for the Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. In 2024, I became a Trustee with Literature Wales. The year also included global exhibitions, talks, workshops, and teaching, focusing on how photography can engage with diverse communities. Key highlights from 2024 include: The Changemakers Project: A Welsh Government exhibition on migration and community, exhibited alongside Mohamed Amin at the National Library of Wales. Bristol Photo Festival: Dreamlines: Documenting contemporary Bristol with Historic England and Bristol City Council. Polaroid X Magnum – Paris Photo Fair: A global exhibition focused on empathy and imperfect perspectives. Witnessing Wales: A solo exhibition at the Pierhead Futures Gallery, Cardiff, exploring community and nationhood. The Street Matters: A community project documenting St Helens Road, Swansea. PH Museum Days – CLOSER: An exhibition in Bologna, Italy, exploring intimacy and challenging stereotypes. Hyphen Online Assignment – World Refugee Day: Photographed Syrian refugees in Aberystwyth for Hyphen magazine. Bom Dia Cymru: A solo exhibition in Wrexham, exploring migration and identity with the Portuguese diaspora community. I contributed to Facing Britain, exhibited at Kunsthalle Darmstadt Museum, and toured to Koslar and Krakow in 2022. In Wales, I exhibited in Many Voices, One Nation 2 at Ffotogallery and Responding to Rembrandt at Oriel Davies. Additionally, I was commissioned by Collective Cymru/National Theatre Wales to document communities for Festival UK 2022.
European Photography 2026 // 21st edition Ghosts of everyday life April 30 – June 14, 2026 Our Hidden Room Edited by Tim Clark “It's my father's story. It's my story. It's the story of our hidden room.” Our Hidden Room is a photographic project that tells a story: the fragmented history of the complex yet profound affection between the artist and his father, also a photographer. Blending photography and narrative, it unfolds as a raw and intimate exploration of family, memory, and loss. During the artist's childhood in Egypt, his father often behaved erratically, hiding from the outside world, increasingly obsessed with a small darkroom hidden in the family home. This physical and psychological space had become a place of solitude, obsession, and an unspoken battle. At a time when mental illness was little known and highly stigmatized, his father's condition—suffering from bipolar disorder—long remained misunderstood, leading him to contemplate suicide. Divided into six chapters, this project traces his father's life, from his difficult childhood in an Alexandria orphanage to his service in the Egyptian army, where he discovered photography as an artistic practice and refuge. Through a deeply personal lens, the artist reflects on themes of resilience, inherited trauma, and the silence surrounding mental illness. Photography, once a source of suffering and conflict within her family, becomes a means of coping and healing, of giving meaning to loss and preserving memory as an act of love. Our Hidden Room is a symbol of art's ability to bear witness, to contain tenderness and pain in a single shot, to find beauty even in absence.
Exhibition text by Paul Cabuts: Mohamed Hassan provides us with an image of our times, one that celebrates the dynamic hybridity of contemporary Wales. The insider/outsider vision of this Welsh/Egyptian photographer brings a long overdue freshness that challenges long-established notions of what identity and belonging means in Wales. The acclaimed historian Gwyn Alf Williams reminded us that “Wales has always been now” and the Welsh “have lived by making and remaking themselves in generation after generation... Wales is an artefact that the Welsh produce”. These photographs allow us to see this ‘making and remaking’ in progress. We can see a diverse range of contributors to this process including those from global majority communities living here in Wales. It is the photograph’s intimate connection with time – the freezing a moment – that allows us to readily see belonging as an on-going process, one that continues to evolve as the world around us changes. Importantly, what we can see being played out in the intimate settings of these photographs, opens a broader view to the essential and universal aspects of human experience and existence. Following a public call-out, Mohamed was chosen by a selection panel of industry professionals and artists: Catherine Spring (Gallery Manager), Helga Henry @helgahenry (Cultural Sector Consultant), Cinzia Mutigli @cinziamutigli (Artist & Co-Director of @g39cardiff ), and Marva Jackson Lord @marva.fyi (Digital Collagist & Web Consultant). His project, Threads of Belonging: An Allegory of Identity, is a powerful exploration of migration, identity, and belonging in contemporary Wales. Through collaborative portraiture, landscapes, and symbolic imagery, Mohamed’s work will weave together personal and collective narratives that reflect the evolving cultural fabric of Wales.
Photography Workshops We’re really excited to be working with photographer Mohamed Hassan @mohamedhassanphoto_ on this free workshop, which explores how storytelling through photography can enhance your creative skills and deepen your appreciation of visual narratives. 𝗥𝘆𝗱𝘆𝗻 𝗻𝗶 𝘄𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗲𝗶𝗻 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝗱 𝗶 𝘄𝗲𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗼 𝗴𝘆𝗱𝗮’𝗿 𝗳𝗳𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗳𝗳𝘆𝗱𝗱 𝗠𝗼𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗱 𝗛𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗻 @mohamedhassanphoto_ 𝗮𝗿 𝘆 𝗴𝘄𝗲𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗱𝘆 𝗮𝗺 𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗺 𝘆𝗺𝗮, 𝘀𝘆’𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝘁 𝘆 𝗴𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗱𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗲𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗿𝘄𝘆 𝗳𝗳𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗮𝗲𝘁𝗵 𝗴𝘆𝗳𝗼𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗴𝗶 𝗲𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝘀𝗴𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗮𝘂 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗼𝗹 𝗮 𝗱𝘆𝗳𝗻𝗵𝗮𝘂 𝗲𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗴𝘄𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗳𝗮𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗮𝗱 𝗼 𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗮𝘂 𝗴𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗼𝗹. 𝗗𝗱𝗲𝘄𝗶𝘀𝘄𝗰𝗵 𝘂𝗻 𝗼’𝗿 𝗱𝗱𝗮𝘂 𝗹𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗱: || You can choose from two locations: 📍 Criwdem Celf, Carmarthen – 17.05.2025 @criwdem_celf - FULLY BOOKED 📍 Creative Spaces, Llanelli – 18.05.2025 @creativespacewales Spaces are limited, so book soon to secure your free place! Link in our profile. 𝗡𝗶𝗳𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝘆𝗳𝘆𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗴 𝗼 𝗹𝗲𝗼𝗲𝗱𝗱 𝘀𝘆𝗱𝗱 𝗮𝗿 𝗴𝗮𝗲𝗹, 𝗳𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗯𝘄𝗰𝗵 𝘆𝗻 𝗳𝘂𝗮𝗻 𝗶 𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗵𝗮𝘂 𝗲𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗹𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗺 𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗺! 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗰 𝘆𝗻 𝗲𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗹.
Toner presents Encounter: A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION ON OUR TOPOGRAPHIC PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE 1 - 31 May 2026 Encounter brings together a group of contemporary photographers working in the UK, whose practices engage with the landscape as both a geological record and a living, contested terrain. Through images of rock formations, eroded coastlines, quarries, riverbeds, and shifting hillsides, the works consider land as an archive of deep time, one that vastly exceeds the scale of human history. Looking to the past as a means of understanding the present, the exhibition reflects on the legacy of the New Topographics movement and its continued relevance today. The photographers draw upon this historical mode of seeing, characterised by clarity, restraint, and an unsentimental gaze, while reworking it in response to contemporary conditions. In this sense, the work operates between old and new Topographics: acknowledging earlier photographic approaches to the altered landscape, while extending them to address current ecological, social, and temporal concerns. Curated by Matt Martin (Toner) and Ben Osborne Artists featured in the exhibition include Jake Husband, Rebeka Wolfe, Chris Ellis, Mohamed Hassan, Natasha Edgington, Iain Sarjeant, Ian Potter, James John Midwinter, Frances Scott, Ben Osborne, Rachel Poulton,and Matt Martin.
Winner & Exhibiting Artist- 10th Merck Prize of the Darmstadt Days of Photography (24/4/26 - 3/5/26) Exhibition for the 10th Merck Prize Six works have been nominated from the open call for the exhibition at the Museum Künstlerkolonie on the Mathildenhöhe. Nominees Rhiannon Adam – Rhi-Entry; Mohamed Hassan – Our Hidden Room; Alexandra Rose Howland – A Slow Violence; Sophia Kesting & Dana Lorenz – Asphalt, Stones, Shards; Sasha Kurmaz – Red Horse; Jay Ritchie – transcestors Theme Present Tense, as a temporal form, describes the now not as a point in time, but as a state: a tense, unstable present in which perception, reality, and the future are simultaneously negotiated. As such, it is not narrated as a completed story, but as an open, ongoing process. The call for proposals understands this term as a description of a present in a state of tension: a restless, fragile moment characterized by uncertainty, intensification, and change. Present Tense also refers to the current state of the medium of photography itself—to a practice that is repositioning itself between documentation, perception, encounter, and social responsibility. Through immediate presence, through encounter and exchange with the other, photography opens up direct and relational access to reality. In doing so, it distinguishes itself from generative image systems that derive a speculative now from mostly external data of the past. Photography, on the other hand, arises in dialogue with other people, situations, perspectives, and experiences. Thus, the photographic process not only leads to the image; it becomes an action—as a means of directing attention and making social realities tangible.
Happy & Glorious – Coronation art exhibition at The National Archives - originally ending 2/11/2025 - extended to 12/4/2026 Visit Happy & Glorious: Coronation Commissions, a joint exhibition between the Government Art Collection and The National Archives. This free public exhibition at the National Archives' home in Kew, London, features works of art commissioned for the Coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla. In 2023, the Government Art Collection commissioned leading artists in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to create a series of new artworks reflecting on the Coronation’s significance to them and their communities. The artists, whose work will be on display at the exhibition, include Vanley Burke, Joy Gerrard, Sophie Gerrard, Mohamed Hassan, Dale Lewis, Hew Locke, Cornelia Parker and Leslie Thompson. This exhibition will run for six months, with a programme specifically designed to engage schools and young people. The artworks capture events that took place over the Coronation weekend and covered the breadth of the UK, from London and Birmingham, to Belfast and rural communities in Scotland.