Tasneem Alsultan

Born in the US and raised between the United Kingdom and Saudi where she is currently based, Tasneem Alsultan is an investigative photographer, storyteller and global traveler. With an inquisitive eye and camera at hand, she offers intimate and unique perspectives into the everyday lives of her subjects, telling their stories from her heart while striving to humanize and connect their realities to her audiences. Her work largely focuses on documenting social issues and rights-based topics in Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf region through a gender lens, challenging stereotypical perceptions of the Middle East and portraying a region and people that do not conform to expectations. Covering stories primarily for The New York Times and National Geographic, Alsultan documents ground-breaking developments in Saudi and the region, including most recently, the lifting of the driving ban for Saudi women.

Selected as one of the 10 grantees of the Magnum Foundation/ Prince Clause/ AFAC grant in 2015, she began working on her project Saudi Tales of Love which was published in Time’s Lightbox, and later exhibited in Paris Photo, PhotoKathmandu, and among the slideshow at the prestigious Visa Pour L’Image, Perpignan in 2016. Alsultan was selected by British Journal Photography among the best 16 emerging photographers to watch, and PDN’s 30 photographers to watch in 2017. She is a finalist in the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards in Contemporary Issues. She soon joined Rawiya, the first all-female photography collective from the Middle East. In 2018 she joined the Canon Ambassador program as the program’s first Arab female photographer and was selected as as one of the 12 recipients of the Joop Master Class, part of the World Press Photo, Netherlands. In 2019, Alsultan was selected as a recipients of the Catchlight Fellowship to continue her work on Saudi women. She has also received honorable mention for the Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism.

Having focused her research on anthropological studies of Saudi women, Alsultan holds a Master of Art in Social Linguistics from Portland State University and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Linguistics from King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi.