Latest news with #CairoPhotoWeek
Vogue
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Vogue
The Egyptian Creative Community Came Alive at Cairo Photo Week
For ten days last May, the streets of Cairo pulsed with creative energy. Cairo Photo Week, now a cornerstone in the visual culture calendar of the region, returned with its most expansive and ambitious edition yet. On its 4th edition, and held every two years, 'Finding The View' gave name to this year's theme. From Downtown Cairo's heritage venues to the galleries and institutions of New Cairo, the festival transformed the city into a living, breathing celebration of photography and visual storytelling. Organized by Photopia, the independent platform led by Marwa Abu Leila, Cairo Photo Week 2025 unfolded with an impressive breadth of programming: 25 exhibitions featuring the work of 120 artists, over 100 talks and panels, 16 workshops, 6 exhibition tours and photowalks, 53 portfolio reviews, and a rich lineup of networking events. In total, more than 600 hours of programming reached an audience of over 25,000 attendees—including 2,000 students and early-career creatives—making this edition a resounding affirmation of Egypt's vibrant and growing creative community. What makes Cairo Photo Week unique is not just the scale, but its soul. Throughout its many venues—14 in total across two districts—one could feel a palpable sense of connection and momentum. From the bustling energy of the exhibition openings to the quiet intensity of portfolio reviews, the festival felt less like an event and more like a movement. In the exhibitions, established names were shown alongside emerging voices, creating powerful juxtapositions that captured the multiplicity of the region's visual culture. Local photographers documented the nuances of daily life in Cairo with intimacy and urgency, while international artists added new dimensions to the conversation, enriching the global context without overshadowing the local. As a guest, speaker, and portfolio reviewer, I had the privilege of engaging directly with many of the artists and attendees. The hunger for dialogue, mentorship, and community was evident at every turn—from packed panel discussions to spontaneous debates between generations of image-makers. Cairo Photo Week is more than a platform; it is a catalyst. The Fashion Feed: Virality, Burnout & the New Visual Economy panel at the Cairo Design District (One-Ninety, New Cairo). From left to right: Abdallah Sabry, Daniel Rodríguez Gordillo, Bassam Allam, Ämr Ezzeldinn and Farida El Shafie. PhotoVogue: The Power of Community. Daniel Rodríguez Gordillo in Downtown Cairo. Egypt's creative scene is alive, and thriving. Thanks to the tireless work of Photopia and the many artists, educators, and institutions involved, Cairo Photo Week is fostering a space where ideas can take root and visions can evolve. It is not just reflecting the current state of photography in the region—it is actively shaping its future.
Mada
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Mada
Cairo Photo Week: Art as a bridge
Sarah Rifky's reflections on Cairo Photo Week strike a nerve. She exposes the scaffolding beneath the spectacle: financial imaginaries, downtown's rebranding, and the choreography of gentrification disguised as art. This is a necessary critique that refuses to look away. But I want to offer a companion lens, not to contradict hers, but to reframe the question. What if the value of an event like this isn't in its resistance, but in its reach? Not in how loudly it shouts, but in what quiet it manages to disturb. Cairo Photo Week, for all its contradictions, built a bridge: between publics that rarely meet. Not just the critics and cultural theorists Rifky speaks for, but a different crowd entirely: educators, young professionals, cultural workers, curious city-dwellers. People adjacent to the discourse but rarely invited inside. They may not speak the language of dissent, but they came. They listened. And in a city where access is often gated, that matters. Yes, the venues bore the marks of gentrification. Yes, some panels unfolded in English. Yes, the scaffolding is tangled with state power. These tensions are real. But so is what happened inside the rooms: artists showing urgent work; audiences encountering unease; questions asked without answers handed down. Perhaps the more pressing question isn't whether this festival resisted enough, but whether we've made resistance the only valid frame. Who decides what counts as resistance, and to what? And what do we miss when we demand that every gesture declare itself oppositional? If art only ever preached to the converted, it would forfeit the possibility of transformation. Sometimes, art must also lure. It must seduce before it unsettles. If the polish brought people in, maybe the work kept them there, with its friction, its refusal to resolve. Maybe this event wasn't perfect. But it wasn't hollow either. Many of its artists in fact refused the spectacle. Mahmoud Talaat's lens turns Cairo's margins into fact, not metaphor; unflinching in its gaze at decay and displacement. Menna Salah peers through lace and gesture to reveal intimacy as something unstable, masked, or momentarily real. Amr Fayek softens the city into a dream, his blurred, spectral frames less documentary than emotional residue. In a space serving iced-lattes during panels on image-making, their work smoldered quietly. These pieces did not perform resistance. They practiced attention. Rifky is right to name what's missing. But I want to name what appeared: the trace of a different politics, one rooted in patience, permeability, and presence. Because if we believe art must always confront power, we risk overlooking what it means to reach people, across class, context, and conviction. And if we lose faith in the power of art itself, then what are we asking it to do? A surface doesn't crack without pressure. So perhaps the success of the festival lies not in its polish, but in its fracture. In the presence of contradiction. In the fact that some of us left wondering: Who was in the room? Who wasn't? And who is being engaged, not just staged? Because art, if it means more than rebellion, must sometimes be a bridge: between critique and curiosity, the already-awake and the newly-stirring. Not instead of politics, but as one of its quieter forms.
CairoScene
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
Badawy Archive Uncovers Alexandria's Forgotten Visual Histories
Badawy Archive Uncovers Alexandria's Forgotten Visual Histories At Cairo Photo Week, a quiet basement in Alexandria becomes a lens through which three photojournalists reimagine Egypt's visual memory and what it means to preserve it. What started as a space for experimentation, where light, dust, and forgotten cameras invited creative play, has grown into something far more profound. For photojournalists Abdelaziz Badawy, Hazem Gouda, and Ahmed Nagy Draz, the Badawy Archive is an ongoing conversation with memory, authorship, and the passage of time. Hazem Gouda puts it simply, 'The images in this archive are actually survivors.' That survival shapes their approach to the material. 'We're trying to view 'ruined' images differently, which is why we showcased the negatives that were withered by time,' adds Draz. These fragile pieces, often dismissed as damaged or unusable, take on new meaning in their hands. Their latest exhibition, A Visual Trilogy, offers a layered reading of Alexandria's overlooked visual histories. Staged at the historic Shiurbagy Villa, a 1960s home that mirrors the era of many of the photographs, the show unfolds across three conceptual chapters. Together, they chart the life and work of photographer Ahmed Badawy while engaging with the archive itself as both a fragile subject and a symbol of creative resistance. The first chapter introduces Badawy through his own photographs. The second takes viewers underground, into the very basement where the archive lay dormant for decades. Negatives, cameras, and film reels sat gathering dust, carrying the quiet weight of a forgotten legacy. The final chapter brings us to the present, where the three photojournalists offer their own artistic interpretations, questioning how time alters meaning and how image-makers carry the responsibility of care. Abdelaziz Badawy reflects on the ongoing process, saying, 'We keep discovering new stories as we dig in the archive.' This continuous uncovering shapes the exhibition's spirit, reminding us that archives are living histories rather than static records. In a video installation by Samar Bayoumi, fragments of sound and movement from today's Alexandria intertwine with images of Badawy, creating a subtle dialogue between eras. The past does not stay in place, and the archive is not treated as sacred. Instead, time is framed as an artist in its own right, shaping what remains and how it is seen.
CairoScene
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
Pulitzer-Winning Photographer Michael Chávez on Cairo's Photo Scene
'Photography is more visible than ever online, but how do these photographers sustain it financially?' says the photojournalist. May 15, 2025 'I've always had a soft spot for Cairo, so to be here and see what Cairene photographers are doing right now, it's pretty exciting,' American photojournalist and educator Michael Robinson Chávez tells CairoScene during Cairo Photo Week. Chávez is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a veteran visual storyteller whose work has taken him to over 75 countries. He has covered a wide range of global events, from the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution to the collapse of Venezuela and the impacts of climate change across Siberia and the Bay of Bengal. His photography is known for its blend of journalistic depth and lyrical composition, earning him recognition for both his coverage and the emotional depth of his images. Throughout the week, Chávez has wandered through the packed halls and side-street venues of Cairo Photo Week, taking in the rhythm of a city captured through hundreds of different lenses. He has spent time with young Egyptian photographers, listening to how they frame their stories and the challenges they face turning their craft into a career. He notes a shift that feels significant. There is a growing support system that did not exist a decade ago. Resources like grants, workshops, and mentorships are beginning to reach photographers outside traditional gate-kept circles. For many, this is the first time they are seeing their work not only taken seriously, but exhibited publicly, discussed in critique sessions, and included in wider conversations about visual culture in the Arab world. 'There's a paradox,' he says. 'Photography is more visible than ever online, but how do these photographers sustain it financially? That's still a big question.' For Chávez, that question lingers. But so does the sense of momentum.
CairoScene
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
Vincent van de Wijngaard & Imaan Hammam's Story Returns to Cairo
'A Sense of Place' follows Imaan Hammam as she revisits her father's narrative in Egypt, and is now showing at Cairo Photo Week. May 15, 2025 When Dutch filmmaker and photographer Vincent van de Wijngaard first visited Cairo two years ago, the image of the pyramids stayed with him. Not as distant monuments, but as part of the city's everyday landscape. That perspective became the starting point for a new story. Shot for Harper's Bazaar US, the series titled 'A Sense of Place' follows Moroccan Dutch Egyptian model Imaan Hammam as she revisits her father's narrative in Egypt. From a roadside café lit in soft blue tones to the wide desert expanses surrounding the Giza Plateau, the project blends fashion photography with a sense of personal return. This week, van de Wijngaard is back in Cairo as part of Cairo Photo Week. His series is on view at the historic Cinema Radio in Downtown Cairo, not far from where the images were first captured. Beyond exhibiting his work, van de Wijngaard engages with emerging photographers through portfolio reviews and workshops, helping to shape the conversations at the festival. As Cairo Photo Week continues to foreground local narratives and expand the region's image-making ecosystem, collaborations like van de Wijngaard's serve as a reminder that stories do not just travel. They come home. The festival is running until May 18th in Downtown Cairo.
