Transient Curated is pleased to present People of the Sahara by Giulio Aprin. People of the Sahara is a series of 100 artworks taken over five years of the artist's travels through Mauritania, Algeria, and Libya in the largest desert in the world. Given access to certain areas of the Sahara for the first time ever with a camera, Aprin built a unique trust with the subjects of his portraits. Artworks are available to collect October 29th for .1E each.
Mauritania • Libya • Algeria
People of the Sahara is a black-and-white photographic journey built over five years of exploration, from 2020 to 2025, across the vast and shifting landscapes of the world’s largest desert. This curated collection of 100 photographs intimately portrays the lives, presence, and enduring spirit of the nomadic and Berber communities of Mauritania, Libya, and Algeria.
This project was built over more than four months combined in the Sahara, often on expeditions lasting up to two months at a time, sleeping in tents without running water or electricity, relying only on our 4×4 and the supplies we carried. Life in these vast landscapes was stripped to its essentials and shaped by the numerous challanges we had to face.
The project was never about chasing people or capturing portraits at any cost. It emerged slowly, through shared time, respect, and intention. Each photograph is the result of real encounters, moments lived, not staged. Many of the subjects became part of the work by choice, allowing their stories to be told. This is a collaborative collection, created with the people of the desert. Some images reflect their voices; others reflect ours, the moments in between, the silences, the exchanges, the distances crossed to meet.
This body of work captures a layered portrait of desert life, shaped through months spent among the dunes of Mauritania, encounters with Tuareg elders in Libya’s remote interior, and brief but meaningful time with Zenata Berbers in Algeria’s Gourara region. It reflects the diverse human landscape of the Sahara, from Bidan (Moors) and Haratines to Black African pastoralists, whose lives are deeply intertwined with the rhythms of the desert. Each image offers a quiet window into the rhythm of life in villages, towns, and remote outposts, revealing resilience, tradition, and a profound bond with the land.
Though taken in distant landscapes, these photographs are not about difference, but recognition. The people portrayed are seen in their daily lives, spontaneous, unfiltered, and present. The scenes may be framed by sand or stone, but what they reveal is something familiar: care, dignity, routine, and community. The desert may shift, but the essence of being human remains.
Through scenes of solitude and communion, People of the Sahara invites viewers to reflect on what endures in an environment often seen as inhospitable. It is not only a visual record, but a gesture of trust and a tribute to the dignity, presence, and quiet strength of those who call the desert home.
CURATED