Photography installation

Cairo Habibis is an intimate installation gathering 14 portraits and objects. The portraits are set up as stories to unravel each character’s inner world.
It is set as visual scenery of the people who in the course of 8 years, from 2004 to 2012 have impacted my Cairo experience and have come to personify the country, in its beauty, diversities and contrasts.
Three walls.
Each wall represents a period of time and emotion in the course of my past 8 years in Cairo, Egypt.

• Love and Denial (2004-2008)
• Passion Pain (2008-2011)
• A Fresh start (2011…)

The portraits are first taken with a filter to start the process of transformation, then manipulated digitally as painted sketches and recolored before print. I chose to print each photo on canvas sheet (“bâche”, a plastic material often used for carrying aliments in Egypt) and then displayed on wooden frames (chassis).
Each portrait is shown alongside an object present in the picture. The symbolic approach gathers both public and private emotions. The parallel is set between individuals and masses, one life and that of an entire country.