Alaa Hassan was 25 years old when the uprisings against Bashar al-Assad began in Syria. He was part of the movement that grew quickly against the former president, and turned into a civil war. In 2013, facing mandatory military conscription and the death of some of his closest friends at the hands of security forces, Hassan decided to leave the country. It wasn’t until last December, when the Assad government fell, that he was able to return. Now, he has a new mission: to document both the loss and the rebirth of his country.
Portrait photographer and photojournalist Max Aguilera-Hellweg has documented the magnetic realm of the operating-room in his book, The Sacred Heart: An Atlas of the Body Seen Through Invasive Surgery, and the experience led him to change his life. Kurt Andersen talks with him about his extraordinary, beautiful, and sometimes disturbing images, and about the blurred […]