Cairo Gallery
Contemporary Image Collective Cairo, Egypt. October/November 2007. This workshop was developed as part of Moving Walls: A Documentary Photography Exhibition. An international exhibition curated and sponsored by the Open Society Institute a private operating and grant making foundation based in New York City. Chien-Chi Chang from Magnum Photos taught this five-day workshop to a total of nine students. Instead of having the students work on story ideas, Chien-Chi applied a number of exercises aimed at having them think about their own photography and why they wish to pursue it. These exercises were designed to have each person feel more comfortable with the medium and their equipment, to think about subjectivity and objectivity in documentary photography, and to explore what it feels like to be photographed in an intimate setting, putting themselves in the role of subject. For each exercise Chien-Chi set a number of technical and practical restrictions thus encouraging the participants to think outside of the box. By the end of the workshop, the group was able to select a series of portraits made by each person. They edited this final selection into an installation that was included as part of the Moving Walls exhibition hanging at the CIC.
The installation made by the students has been reproduced here digitally. It includes 9 horizontal rows and 9 vertical rows. The horizontal rows are the portraits made by each participant of a particular person. The vertical rows are the 8 portraits made by that person of the others.
Hesham Labib received a degree in Architecture in 1986. An autodidact photographer, Hesham took one basic photography course at the American University in Cairo in 1983. Interested in the nomadic life of the Bedouin, he took a year off from school and lived and photographed in the Sinai for one year. The first exhibition he had was in 1987 at the Goethe Institute in Cairo. Since then he has shown his work extensively both in Egypt and abroad. He currently lives in Cairo with his family where he works as a freelance photographer. Email heslabib@yahoo.com
Jihan Ammar is the Mideast Deputy Photo Director for AFP (Agence France-Presse). Based out of such diverse locales as Cairo, Nicosia, Tehran and Paris, Jihan has worked as a professional photojournalist and photo editor for over ten years covering stories from Baghdad to Sydney. Jihan's work in the mainstream media shaped her perspective and led her to pursue a documentary approach in her personal work. Whereas photojournalism mostly records history in public places, Jihan's work pictures personal histories in private spaces. She is a 2003 recipient of the Fifty Crows International Fund for Documentary Photography Award. Her documentary picture essays have been exhibited around the world including most recently at the Insitute du Monde Arab in Paris, the Fotographie Forum International in Frankfurt, African Biennale of Photography in Bamako, Mali, The Townhouse Gallery in Cairo, and the Fifty Crows Gallery in San Francisco. Web www.jammphoto.com Email jihan@jammphoto.com
Nermine Hammam was born in Cairo in 1967. She obtained her BFA in filmmaking from New York University's Tisch School of Arts in 1989. From 1990 to 1994, she worked with Simon & Goodman and the renowned film director Youssef Chahine, also serving as production assistant in the movie Malcolm X. In 1994 Nermine founded Equinox Graphics. Since then, she has created some of Cairo's trendiest and most popular brands: Cilantro café, Diwan Bookstores and the Deyafa group of restaurants and bars - Sangria, Absolute, Tabasco and Abou El Sid among others. Nermine's photographic artwork bears witness to transcendental spiritual ceremonies in different parts of the Middle East. She reworks raw photography into painterly, evocative, large-format prints. She has shown her work both in Egypt and abroad. Nermine currently lives and works in Cairo. Web www.nerminehammam.com Email minouhammam@hotmail.com
Ahmed Kamel graduated in 2003 with a specialization in painting from the faculty of fine arts at Cairo University. While in university he began to use his artwork as a means to address social issues, he also began to experiment with photography. Ahmed currently lives in his native Cairo where he works as an artist. Web www.ahmed-kamel.com Email info@ahmed-kamel.com
John Perkins was born in London. After studying Anthropology in Belfast during the Troubles, John traveled widely in the Middle East. In 2000 he began photographing the daily lives of people caught up in the second Intifada. His subjects have included taxidermy, football, Ramadan, curfews, and funerals. His work has won several awards in America and Europe, and has been published and exhibited widely. He currently lives in Cairo. Web http://www.ripserve.com/perkins/ Email perkins@ripserve.com
Shaza Moharam was born in Alexandria, Egypt. She graduated from the Spanish faculty of Al-Alsun, Ain Shams University. She is an amateur photographer and filmmaker interested in documentary and creative photography. Currently she is working as a project manager for photography courses at the contemporary image collective in Cairo. Email shazaster@gmail.com
Nermine el Ansari was born in 1975. She lives and works as a visual artist in Cairo. In 1998 she received a diplomain painting from the School of Fine Arts in Versailles, France. In 2002 she graduated in multimedia from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. In 2001 she was awarded a scholarship to study at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba. She has participated in workshops in The Ivory Coast, Lebanon, Taiwan and Germany. Her work has been exhibited both in Egypt and abroad. Email nermineansari@yahoo.fr
Weaam el Masry has a PhD in Design from the Faculty of Applied Arts at Helweh University. She began experimenting with photography in 2001, participating in a number of local and international photography workshops. This marked a shift in her focus from painting to photography. Weaam has exhibited her work in Egypt, Algeria, Spain, Itlay and South Korea. She currently lives and works in Cairo. Email weaamelmasry@hotmail.com
Hany Abdien is a working engineer living in Cairo. Photography is his hobby. He enjoys photographing everything from architecture and landscapes to animals and people. He has participated in various workshops in order to improve his knowledge of the medium. Web www.photogravity.net Email hany_abdien@hotmail.com