The fourth round of Cairo Photo Week, as mentioned in this space last week, was extraordinary for the diversity in its talks as well as the number of exhibitions and the authentic venues hosting them in Downtown Cairo. The Al-Shorbagy building and Beit Bab Al-Louq were carefully chosen as historic residences with a unique architecture and a vintage ambience.
In Beit Bab Al-Louq, also known as Villa Faisy Pasha, located in one of the oldest squares in Cairo, our very own Randa Shaath made her comeback in an exhibition of which Marwa Abou Leila, the director of the photo week, was particularly proud. The title Al-Qahera 90, or Cairo-90, recalled the 1960s movie based on Naguib Mahfouz’s novel, Al-Qahera 30, starring Soad Hosny, Hamdi Ahmed and Ahmed Mazhar.
Born to a Palestinian father, the politician Nabil Shaath, and an Alexandrian mother, Shaath has an intimate connection with these pages. She worked at Al-Ahram Weekly from 1993 to 2005, when –together with the late Sherif Sonbol – she “revolutionised photography”. The newspaper’s founding editor, Hosny Guindy, would often ask her, “any ideas for the front-page photo this week?” The discussion would usually go on until the paper went to print. Shaath’s compelling portraits gave the newspaper’s Profile section a distinguished character widely remembered to this day.
Al-Qahira 90 is dedicated to Miss Lillianne, the school librarian who inspired Shaath to step into the field of photography and explore Cairo – its history, streets and people – starting with monthly trips to explore Old Cairo.
Displayed on the walls of the vintage villa were 20 black and white photographs documenting Cairo life in the 1990s, and emanating nostalgia.
“This is not a 1990s nostalgia exhibition, it’s documenting the 1990s, and it’s that time when I mostly had my street assignments with my colleagues at the Weekly. Cairo is a city that witnesses rapid change all the time so maybe this was the right time for an exhibition that documents the city and its people, almost 30 years back,” Shaath explained to the visitors.
The images speak eloquently, and they brought back my memories of them on the Weekly’s pages. The one of the rooftop for example was published on the front page of the newspaper, marking the beginning of summer.
“At that time I just moved to an apartment on the 14th floor with my family,” Shaath told me, “and I discovered life on rooftops,” the theme of what would become one of her long-term projects. “The project lasted for eight years and was exhibited in many countries, and a book was then published,” Under the Same Sky: Rooftops of Cairo.
The exhibition’s poster celebrated the power and perseverance of the Egyptian woman holding her child on her shoulders. “This was my choice and design. I thought it recognises both architecture and people and I liked the strength in the woman’s gaze,” Shaath said, adding that the photo was taken near Ibn Tulun Mosque as she used to wander with her camera in the streets of Cairo.
Other photographs are of Ramses Station, a view of Maspero triangle which no longer exists, life in the underground Metro stations and phases of construction, faces from Garden City neighbourhood where Shaath resides, and scenes from the construction works of extensions made to the 6 October Bridge.
While curating her solo exhibition, Shaath had a certain vision or sequence in mind. “I tried to show people and places alternately. I started with Ramses Square where the pharaoh’s statue, now at the GEM, was still standing; and I ended with a note of hope, where a little girl is rowing the boat along the Nile. Cities change but it is the people who make the cities,” Shaath told the Weekly.
Villa Faisy Pasha, also known as Villa Saladdin, was owned by Mohamed Faisy Pasha, an aristocrat of Albanian descent, who held the position of minister of Awqaf (Endowments) from 1893 to 1900. The villa is notable for its elaborate design, featuring towers, turrets and intricate trim reflecting the European-influenced style popular among Cairo’s elite during the Belle Époque. It is currently part of the AUC’s properties.
Shaath worked for Agence France Press (AFP) in Egypt and Gaza. She was also the Al-Shorouk daily newspaper’s photo editor for six years.
“I still walk to discover places, I photograph them, I document people’s lives, their clothes, their hairstyles. I document architecture and road signs. I try to capture the emotions, aspirations, and dreams of specific moments. Houses and cities disappear, and memory fades. Yet, photographs remain - a tool to resist disappearance and loss. I resist with photography,” Shaath notes on the wall.
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A 20-minute walk from Villa Faisy, you arrive at the iconic Shorbagy building at the Abdel-Khaleq Tharwat and Mohamed Farid intersection. Also known as Davies Bryan, the Welsh-style, seven-storey redbrick building has borne testimony to Khedival Cairo’s notable architectural heritage since 1910. Al-Ismaelia for Real Estate Investment took over its renovation works, which was completed in 2015, and lately the interior was repurposed for contemporary use. The rooftop of the “red building” was renamed Villa Victoria and Villa Violette, and here Cairo Photo Week created exhibition spaces.
Villa Violette brought back Alexandrian photographer Ahmed Badawy’s studio archives with exhibition titled “Visual Trilogy,” curated by Ahmed Nagy Draz, Abdel-Aziz Badawy, the grandson of the photographer, and Hazem Gouda. The exhibition reveals three stages: the photographer’s journey from capturing the 1960s and 1970s life in the Mediterranean city, the storage of material in the studio’s basement, and the creation of an archive and exhibiting stage.
From the storage boxes to the walls of the iconic Shorbagy building those black-and-white images tell stories of the city and its people. The Cairo Photo Week publicity poster photo is inspired by Badawy’s black and white capture of an unknown woman on her engagement day, dating back to the 1960s.
During the excavations in Badawy’s basement, many photos were found damaged due to poor storage, mainly those taken before 1980. Part of the exhibition shows visitors the effect of time on those negatives and prints, which results in a new form of art, photography transformed by time, as impressive as it is striking. Some features are erased from the photograph, replaced by layers, scratched, creating a different photography concept, creating an aged beauty.
Behind Cinema Amir, on 21 Safiya Zaghlul Street, the Alexandrian photographer’s “Studio Badawy” has stood since the 1950s. Badawy documented Alexandrian society’s many occasions, mostly engagement and wedding parties, heritage and life, and political occasions like president Abdel-Nasser’s speeches and his symbolic funeral. He left behind a huge number of memories to share with the people of the city after so many years. Badawy’s archive was first opened to the public at Alexandria Photo Week in 2024. A year after the photographer passed away, in 2014, the three curators decided to dig into his basement and save whatever was left of modern Egyptian history it contained. Therefore the archive team started to organise two weekly visits, both on Fridays, with only six people on each visit to avoid crowding, taking into consideration the size of the studio space and its humid conditions.
Samar Baiomy, visual story teller and lecturer at the British University in Egypt, curated a creative and interesting section in the exhibition. As Badawy liked to capture himself near Alexandria’s iconic venues, documenting his presence and creating a special bond with the city, Baiomy imagined the photographer’s presence today at the same venues where he captured himself and others in the past.
“Between past and present, photographs intersect to reveal how our city changes. This show is an invitation to contemplation: how do we revive what was, and grasp what might fade away? And how do we preserve the features of a city trying not to be forgotten?”
Based on her thoughts and beliefs, Baiomy used artificial intelligence (AI) to mix old self-portraits of Badawy, on Stanley Beach for example, with a present photo of the beach, thus paying homage to an icon who left a permanent mark on the photography industry in Alexandria, and whose influence endures into the present.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 29 May, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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