British-born, Cairo-based photojournalist Karina Al Piaro is a photographer with a cause; having exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London and shot editorially for publications such as Vogue, Elle and The Times, it was her experience assisting with the National Geographic in Egypt that triggered a conviction in the power of the image itself in terms of raising awareness and utilising the image as a voice. Al Piaro witnessed the Arab Spring directly in Egypt, a place she has known intimately for 25 years; she has been exploring the relationship between the Egyptian people and the Nile in an attempt, through the image, to rediscover the identity of real Egyptians. Al Piaro is currently the founding director of Fondation Monde Perdu (Foundation of Lost World): a non-profit organisation consisting of a collective of Anglo-French-Arab photographers dedicated to creating Nile Legacy Projects raising positive awareness concerning heritage rights in Egypt through the multimedia platform of art. The exhibition tour of “Nile in the Blood” is scheduled to begin in spring 2013, beginning in Aswan on the Nile in Egypt, and will mark the beginning of a multimedia project evolving across the world to promote Nile heritage. “I am very much concerned with showing the other side of Egypt in order to face the negative image of Egypt spreading these days in the European media as a place of political unrest and aggression as seen in Tahrir Square.”
