Rose of the Desert is a project about the Annual Festival of the Sahara, a 4-day event in the Oasis town of Douz. The festival is a celebration of Northern African Arab-Berber Traditions. Sophie Jane Stafford visited Douz in December-January 2017-18 to photograph the town during the festival.
The project shifts its gaze to contemporary Tunisians living in this rural part of Tunisia, exploring the clash of modern and historic Desert culture at the festival, not necessarily featured in mainstream media. The photographs in the book are a meditation on both the old and the new.
36 pages, 21 x 26 cm, softcover, self-published (London).