The participants speak to Youssef Rakha Nermin Hammam I find it very difficult to talk about what I do in this way, because, you understand, there is one thing -- there are the pictures that you come up with -- and then there is this talking-about-it business, which is an entirely different thing. I started taking pictures a year and a half ago. Before that I was in film school, I worked as a film editor and assistant director for National Geographic and Youssef Chahine and on Malcom X; I studied film criticism; but I don't like the cinema so much. I did one project which was interesting, but mainly it was work that didn't involve me so much. Because you work with a lot of people, too many people, which for me becomes far too distracting and disrupting. Running my own graphics company [Equinox] is different because I'm used to the people I'm with. I lived for a long time in England and America, yes; I went to boarding school and then I studied film at NYU. It was a conscious decision to come back, because I was lazy and I didn't want to work so hard and to have to compete with everybody else. I don't have any particularly strong "national" feelings that drove me back; and in these pictures, if it could be said that I address anybody at all, it would be humanity at large. Yes, I enjoy my work, but I don't have too strong an attachment to any of it; if my computer directory of files is completely wiped out, for example, I wouldn't shed too many tears over it. It's very straightforward work. I do brochures for companies, graphic designs. An oil company wants to produce a promotional leaflet, so I send somebody to take pictures, I scan them into the computer and I might put them together in a certain way. After that I give them their promotional leaflet. Taking pictures is a hobby, I don't know how to do it, really. My camera is LE120 and I buy the cheapest Russian films, which are so old some of them never produce pictures. I scan the pictures in and sometimes I'll print them and exhibit. That's all. I just take the photographs and I layer them on top of each other until I see the meaning in them. I have a large picture library and sometimes I play with what I have. And there is nothing that I plan ahead. I can't seem to escape people as subjects, and I go to the places where I can find them, or, sometimes, images of them. I stand around and if they're intimidated by the camera I refuse to take pictures. Then they come and pose for me and I take many pictures of them until they forget about me and that's when I take the pictures that I use. Places like the Gezira Club or Mohandesseen are too familiar, so I go to moulids or to Old Cairo. And that's all I can say about it. Not all of the pictures on show here are printed on canvas; it was actually William's [Wells] idea. But technology moves ahead and you follow it. It's a hobby that I don't intellectualise. I see myself as a computer technician. I don't have a view of the work; I just do it. It's like being. If you engage completely you disappear and something else comes out. Lara Baladi I was at my aunt's here in Cairo -- that must've been four years ago -- and there was a radiologist present. And she happened to mention that there were pregnant dolls on sale. I didn't believe her, I was very interested, I thought it was a very interesting idea that things like pregnancy, the reproductive cycle, should figure in the manufacture of plastic dolls. They are meant for children and they are so artificial and everything. The arousa is not just a doll, nor is it just a bride or the female in general. And birth is not just birth, it's revival and reawakening and all that. My aunt said we'd make sure I saw one. And when I saw it I said that it should be X-rayed to see if there is a baby inside. And the radiologist took what I was saying seriously, he too was extremely curious about whether the machine would penetrate the plastic and what there would be inside. So we took it and X-rayed it properly at the hospital. I got several dolls, some babies and newborns, some with babies, and I X-rayed them; I was at a point when I just couldn't take any more pictures. I was sick of my camera. I did four and they came out really nice. I'm very light-hearted about it, it never starts with a concept or a preconceived idea. And this is the way it started. Very spontaneous. It's something you laugh about. I would say that I use the X-ray machine because it's a significant tool, as visually relevant as the camera. But I wasn't pleased with the quality of reproduction until I discovered this printing company in Spain, where they sometimes deal with artists to help them realise ideas that they conceptualise but don't know how to articulate. So they printed five bits of X- rays of plastic dolls for me, on acetate. I was going to exhibit this in Cairo but then I had another exhibition in Paris, it was cancelled and they ended up staying, with their plastic boxes, in my drawer, until the present installation came up. A wave pattern connects the X-rays, the important thing was for it to be a cycle, not a circle. And when I thought of doing something that would fit this space, it was then that I thought of the fanous, which is modelled on the star of Islamic architecture, which symbolises the breath of the compassionate. Compassion in the act of living, of going through it all, one thing after another. So we get pregnant, we give birth, we die. That goes on whether you like it or not; that's the saddest and most significant part. The circular is technically much more complicated to accomplish, and I got a steel company to help me install my light boxes into this large fanous, which they built in the Annexe. Youssef Nabil This exhibition is different from any of my previous exhibitions -- in every respect, really. The vision is different, the composition is different, the subject matter tends to go beyond the glamour portrait, for which I became known. And you'll find that there are very few portraits of this kind though I still photograph celebrities whom I like and whose work I admire: Hoda Lutfi, for example, was the model for my version of Frieda Kahlo's "Self Portrait with Cropped Hair" -- something I had wanted to do for a very long time. There is Ghada Amer, Lara Baladi, David Armstrong, people I've worked with and people I haven't. One very significant portrait model for this exhibition is Rossy De Palma, the Almodovar actress, who is somebody I really admire and whose work I deeply respect. A celebrity I like. So I am still very proud of all that. But I also like the fact that I'm moving beyond the kind of work I started out doing. For the first time I'm exhibiting self portraits, for example, even though I've been photographing myself practically since I started. In the present exhibition there are, as well as new subjects, new materials used and new methods of colouring as well. There is less colour, more skewed angles and abrupt confrontations. It all is and will probably remain in the tradition of glamour, which is a slightly retro thing to be doing but also has my own modern and contemporary touch. I see myself as somebody who breathes life into the tradition of coloured black-and-white photography. It's an old tradition interacting with contemporary life. And this is very much what these pictures are about. All these pictures were produced for the present exhibition, they all fit into their slots at that moment in time. There is no general concept or theme for the exhibition as a whole, no. But there are the themes I've always been interested in gender, pain, identity. But with the exception of Rossy De Palma, the straightforward portrait recedes to make way for things not yet exhibited but which it is time to exhibit. Of course each of us offers his or her work, it's something entirely different in each case. And Photo Cairo's importance will become even more obvious in the future when all these different kinds of photography pick up. I exhibit in specifically photographic annual events in Paris, Madrid and Mexico City. Now, along with many relatively ignored photographers working here, I can exhibit in Cairo. Randa Shaath The present exhibition is not new; with minor differences it appeared in Beirut for three months under the title Ashkal Alwan (Shapes and Colours). It's a long time since I've exhibited here, a period of professional frustration: there are very few outlets for the work of photographers; the vast majority of publications do not give photographs the space or respect they deserve; everything, down to the fact that photographic paper is not available for sale anywhere in Egypt works against being a photographer. But when I went to Beirut it wasn't that that was depressing me. It was rather the fact that I hadn't been doing all that much and there were the circumstances of the Intifada. The news was distressing, depressing. And I felt as if I was losing my energy, that I didn't want to do anything or go anywhere. I had just finished my last project and I was sick of pictures. I needed to stop and think. The Beirut exhibition has it's own story, which ties in with what I am telling you about this moment of reconsideration; and it's a very different one from the story of the Cairo exhibition. I was returning to Beirut, where I spent the first 15 years of my life, after 20 years. And it was this aspect of reunion that brought up the question: since I was last there, what have I done with myself? What have I produced? So I took a critical look through all my work and I chose among the pictures, my only criterion being that I would pick the pictures I liked. And these turned out to involve this idea of resilience, the exhibition's only possible theme. Everywhere I was drawn to people displaying signs of strength and vitality under difficult circumstances. I don't think future projects will be qualitatively different from this work, although with the pictures in this exhibition I feel that this is very much work that I've already done, that I must move ahead in some way. What I do is documentary photography, which spills over into photojournalism but isn't quite the same thing. It's true that when I produce photos for the newspaper I do it in exactly the same way, but news photography doesn't quite give you the space that documentary photography does. And I would claim that there is a difference in the quality of my pictures when I've had the chance to spend some time with my subjects, to get to know them and receive some form of input from them. This gives photography something extra, only a small bit that is nonetheless hugely significant for my sense of professional fulfilment. And I believe that the more I know and understand, the better my pictures are. Negar Azimi (with Zeina Arida) The Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation first met with Van Leo in 1998, when the project was still in its formative stages. At that point he was still in his studio. He was very enthusiastic about the project. He said he would contribute his entire collection to the Foundation but what he actually gave them -- as a first instalment -- amounted to no more than 100 prints, however. And towards the end of 2002 he got very sick and I think he realised he was going to die. He closed down the studio and donated his entire collection to the American University in Cairo. The Foundation was upset, especially when AUC began to demand the 100 prints the Foundation had. Without even considering handing them over the Foundation started seeking out a collaboration with AUC, so that both institutions could curate the collection in conjunction. They nominated him for the Prince Klaus Award, and when he won it an exhibition of his work was held at the Townhouse Gallery. It was by way of convincing AUC to collaborate with them that the Foundation did so in the first place, and last June they finally secured that collaboration. While the foundation deals with artistic and archival aspects of Van Leo's legacy, AUC's mandate is to preserve and disseminate it. I initially became involved through AUC, but I was unhappy with the handful of shows that they put on, which merely confirmed the idea of Van Leo as a glamour photographer of a particular style. The present show is meant to introduce the full range of the collection. It's a first step on the way to taking Van Leo beyond the narrow scope of glamour photography and introducing him into the realm of art. Curating the collection for AUC I became aware of the richness, variety and power of what he produced and what he kept. The concept of a legacy was very important to him. In collecting postcards, for example, sometimes he would acquire the card and keep it for two weeks before he decided to place it in a particular file. Recently I found a box of 4x4cm prints, unmarked. I thought I'd gone through everything. But there are these prints of Van Leo and his brother Angelo in various guises in the garden in Helwan: some are Charlie Chaplainesque, others are inspired by Buddha images; all play with notions of gender and identity; hence the idea of "becoming Van Leo". This is a completely unknown part of Van Leo's legacy. Between 1939 and 1940 alone he produced some 400-500 self portraits; these form the bulk of the present exhibition. Most of the collection, which includes everything from prints, negatives, portfolios, files and all manner of memorabilia to mini collections of photo magazines and postcards, exists in small formats reproducible by digital technology. We also converted the 16mm films he produced with his brother into DVD format, so that they could be projected continuously for the duration of the exhibition. This is complemented by the only other self portrait that does not date to the 1939-40 period, which is a 1946 work with a cinematic motif.
