Nermine Hammam: Cairo Year One Newsletter by Rose Issa Projects

Nermine Hammam: Cairo Year One Presented by: The Mosaic Rooms, in association with Rose Issa Projects

A year of change

FROM UPPEKHA TO UNFOLDING: A YEAR OF CHANGE

“...I’m sick of making big statements. The Egyptian revolution has shown the futility of making big statements.” Nermine Hammam

the subjects she photographs: “The revolution was a very powerful and nostalgic time. After all, these are the very same streets I had grown up in, the songs of my childhood blaring from loudspeakers everywhere.” For Hammam, this exposure to the physicality of the photographic experience, more akin to war photography than her earlier more poetic works, triggers both renewed confidence and ambivalence around her art. She actively embraces new photographic techniques, all the while grappling with a growing distrust of the constructed way in which photographers view and record the world. Taken together, Hammam’s works of the past year record the artist’s personal experience of change, tracing her journey from the immediate ‘highs’ of revolution to the darker sense of disillusion and betrayal: “as the revolution is derailed.” In the tumultuous months following the January uprisings, Hammam’s routine centers on daily visits to the flashpoints of Cairo where she documents the political and personal cost of change. The artist runs considerable personal

risk to photograph almost 70,000 images. For the first time, she adopts the technique of the ‘snap shot’: “These photographs are different than my other works because I’m using snapshots – it’s all about how quickly the mind can grasp an image. I had to rely on instinct to capture that special moment in a changing and violent context: an image that says something instantaneous but also universal.” Later she observes: “In the field I am a photojournalist. I am only an artist when I get back home. I lived in the square and watched events unfold day by day.” Hammam records, with the eye of the photo journalist, details that capture the spirit of these changing times. In searching for her subjects, she eschews clichés in favour of more universal and enduring symbols: “I did not look for the immediate or the sensational…I looked for the balance that is inherent in life.” She speaks of searching for “pockets of tenderness in the midst of chaos” and of wandering the streets looking for the right vantage point: “I would photograph for hours, then come back to my studio to edit, only to return again to the streets, hours later, still searching for the most eloquent shot.”

Girl posing for a photograph during Egypt›s January Revolution (Jan 2011)

The year 2011-2012 has proved a turning point in the career of Egyptian photo-artist, Nermine Hammam. It is a time of historic change in Egypt as the January 2011 revolution topples former President, Hosni Mubarak, and ushers in a period of social and political uncertainty. During the eighteen days of protest in Tahrir Square, and in the turbulent months that follow, Hammam documents the daily scenes of popular unrest and police brutality playing out in the city streets she once roamed as a child. This

is not her first experience of political upheaval. In 1974, when she was only seven, Egypt was at war and tanks were parked in the very same positions around Tahrir Square. But this time, Egypt is in conflict with itself. Hammam immerses herself in what she calls: “the breathless, thick of things”. Her role as photographer is transformed from an observer of life at the margins of society to a citizen-artist: “a person here, at this time, in this state of the country” running from tear gas, tired and hiding, as vulnerable as

Protestors sit in the coils of a tank wheel (Jan 2011) 14

FROM UPPEKHA TO UNFOLDING: A YEAR OF CHANGE

“...I’m sick of making big statements. The Egyptian revolution has shown the futility of making big statements.” Nermine Hammam

Girl posing for a photograph during Egypt›s January Revolution (Jan 2011)

Protestors sit in the coils of a tank wheel (Jan 2011) 14

The resulting works include large panoramic images of the cacophony of Tahrir Square, where the faceless crowds of protestors blend with the derelict buildings that surround them: “In the chaos of revolution all is merging together – the people, the walls – all is spilling and fluid. There is an overriding sense of chaos and decrepitude.” Street signs that once pointed the way have lost all meaning as the Square is transformed into a sea of people, watching and waiting. Hammam depicts a tank parked under a one-way sign: Egypt has passed the point of no return. Speaking of the turmoil captured in her work Hammam notes: “Many of these images of Cairo look like a war zone. In fact, Cairo has looked like this even before the revolution with citizens living in unimaginable squalor.”

celebratory mood as girls flirt with a handsome soldier and a family poses for the camera, each wearing a gas mask. A youth leans against a derelict wall on which is scrawled the words: Egypt is an Islamic Country: “This young man seems to have no affiliation to any particular group or label. He’s just an ordinary guy caught up in events over which he really has no control,” explains Hammam. There is also irony in these works: a bearded member of the religious right parades an image of an equally bearded Mubarak represented as an orthodox Jew.

Other, more intimate photographs show the early euphoric relationship between soldiers and citizens in the immediate aftermath of revolution: an exhausted soldier rubs his temples as a young girl stands, smiling, on his tank beneath a sign that reads ‘Cleopatra’. Protestors lie curled inside tank wheels smiling at the camera, like children in a protective womb. These images speak of a festive,

Created in March 2011, the series “Uppekha” arises out of these photographs. A series of mixed media works, “Uppekha” features the images of young Egyptian army soldiers, taken in Tahrir Square, transposed onto the idealized backdrops of second-hand European postcards. Hammam uses these images of young soldiers to explore the aggressions of a society that super-imposes roles

The irony, of course, is that man and cartoon look identical: “there are no differences, or barriers, between religions other than those created by ignorance”.

A family outing to Tahrir Square (Nov 2011)

of masculinity onto disoriented and ill-prepared youth. A nostalgic and optimistic work, “Uppekha” explores photography as a means of unveiling truths that might otherwise remain hidden from view: by depicting the soldiers as young, effeminate youths in ill-fitting combat gear, Hammam individualizes her subjects, reclaiming them from the group. She unmasks stereotypes of military power by revealing the femininity and vulnerability they conceal.

Images of religious unity are prevalent during the revolution (Jan 2011)

Towards the end of 2011, Hammam’s visits to Cairo streets become more dangerous, her images growing darker and more cynical as she records increasing instances of statesponsored violence against civilians. Sinister images now replace the earlier sense of festivity and family occasion. A turning point for Hammam is the attacks, in November, on Coptic families living in the Mokkatam District of Cairo. Traveling to Mokkatam every day, returning home late at night, Hammam captures haunting images of destruction and loss: “This was a particularly difficult work for me to photograph,” says Hammam,” I went to their devastated

houses and the morgues where their children lay. I walked in their funerals to get a sense of what they were going through.” In one image, a mother cries, clasping the photograph of her dead son: “this is the image of an image that has come to stand in for reality,” says Hammam, “all that is left of her dead son is that idea of him as represented by this one photograph”. There is self-critique in Hammam’s growing preoccupation with the artificial nature of the image: “Over the past year, I have learned to trust the image less and less; and I distrust people’s intentions behind creating images more and more. I distrust that there is anything real in the image. It hints at reality and yet there is nothing really there.” Subsequent photographs emphasize this growing sense of disillusion: “There is a fall from innocence in this work, a fall from grace.” A young man lies dying, his eyes crossed and an oxygen mask strapped to his face. An invocation of the prophet Mohamed has been hastily scribbled on the wall above his head. Another victim of 16

The irony, of course, is that man and cartoon look identical: “there are no differences, or barriers, between religions other than those created by ignorance”.

A family outing to Tahrir Square (Nov 2011)

Images of religious unity are prevalent during the revolution (Jan 2011)

tear gas is carried by the crowd, a Christ-like figure with arms outstretched. The tragedy unfolding in the streets of Tahrir transcends religion and ideology as the state turns on its own citizens. Hammam is struck by the ease with which many of her fellow citizens go about their daily lives, ignoring the violence raging in parts of the city. She tells of one occasion where she herself emerges out of Tahrir Square only to join relatives in a fashionable tea garden in Cairo, unaware that her face, hair and clothes are white with the residue of tear gas canisters. Sitting in the idyllic gardens it seems inconceivable to her that, only a kilometer from this tranquil scene, young people are losing their lives in protest. Faced with such devastating human loss, Hammam also reflects on her role as photographer: “In the face of horror, the photographer retreats behind the camera and fails to act. Confronted by the pain of others, the photographer must remain passive in order for the photograph to emerge.” She adds: “During this past year, I’ve seen the predatory side of myself as a photojournalist. I have felt

Violence erupts on Cairo streets (Nov 2011)

what it means to be acquisitive, seizing moments that are not really mine, ‘grabbing’ other people’s experiences.” The darker and more despondent photographs of 2012 give rise to “Unfolding”, completed in May of this year. “Unfolding” is a series of mixed media works that embeds ubiquitous images of police brutality, recognizable to all Egyptians, within the traditional landscapes of 18th Century Japanese screens. Dressed in uniforms, their faces concealed behind visors, the protagonists of “Unfolding” beat young protestors lying at their feet. Removing her figures from the familiar setting of Cairo, to the otherworldliness of Zen landscapes, Hammam emphasizes the pointlessness of the violence depicted. There is a palpable sense of hopelessness in the work, the figures appearing entangled and entrenched.

she once interpreted the events of revolution: “one year on from creating “Uppekha” I stand back and ask myself: “Is that really how I saw things? I suppose even in the early days of euphoria, I had the uncomfortable feeling that betrayal was possible. Perhaps, in my, head I always knew that “Unfolding” was coming.” As a result, she no

longer searches for the large statements: “After all, we’ve been trained to walk straight past that which is large and billboard like. Instead, my work is more akin to someone whispering. To hear my message, you have to move in close.”

For Hammam, “Unfolding” is a culmination of the year spent photographing on the streets of Cairo. It represents a negation of the sense of optimism embodied in “Uppekha” and the artist’s own bewilderment at the way in which

An anti-Mubarak protestor in Tahrir Square (Jan 2011) 18

Violence erupts on Cairo streets (Nov 2011)

An anti-Mubarak protestor in Tahrir Square (Jan 2011) 18

Q&A with the Artist

Q&A WITH THE ARTIST Q: You’ve said that without “Uppekha” there could not have been “Unfolding”. What do you mean by that? In both “Uppekha” and “Unfolding” I explore the constructed way in which we see and are led to see. I wanted to do something that would force us to question the basis for our own pre-conceptions – to make us selfconscious about the constructed way in which we view the world. I created ‘Unfolding” (April/May 2012) about a year on from “Uppekha”(March/April 2011) and, in fact, quite a lot of my work seems to come about in this way, in pairs, with the latter work emerging as a kind of response to the earlier work. “Uppekha” explores the ‘politics of looking’ in terms of a two-way relationship that confers power: what I am trying to say is that power is a myth, a construct. It resides only in the images we hold of it. The very existence of power (or the stereotypes of military might) depends on the faith of onlookers - those who look at stereotypes and mistake them for reality. In “Unfolding”, I have come further in my thinking about ‘the politics of looking’, tackling it in terms of omission and non-intervention. “Unfolding” comments on our ability to omit or ignore anything that doesn’t comfortably fit into our constructed view of the world. “Unfolding” is about the horror of our refusal to see the crimes taking place around us. Q: Over the past 18 months, you have been photographing political events unfolding in your country. Has this experience changed your view of the medium of photography and your own relationship to it? What is so ironic about the photograph is that, while it has the power to reveal it subjects in ways they can never see themselves, it also has the power to fabricate and obscure. After all, the edge of the photograph can exclude as much as it includes. To me, this makes the photograph an inherently fictitious and unreliable record of both the past and the present.

Somehow, the very act of taking pictures of the revolution separated me from the people and places I portrayed. It placed them firmly in the past. This aspect of photography fascinates me: you freeze a moment in time, separating it from a particular sequence of events. Then, out of that, a tangible object – the photograph – emerges which then takes on a life of its own far from the events of Tahrir Square. Q: Are you saying that photography distorts or obscures the reality it seeks to record? “Everything is a construct and nothing is real. My work is about how we see things in a constructed way. It’s only the mind that strives to analyse and give shape to the world. Once you realize this and stop trying to make sense, and order, out of your context, there is a kind of relief. Where photography is complicit, is in its fabrication of images that we mistake for ‘truth.’ I always try to remind myself of that when I take things too seriously, so I can start playing. Q: Is this why you resort to the technique of layering in your art? I have always used layering and digital manipulation of images in my work. However, in recent years, this process has become increasingly self conscious. By layering image upon image I am, essentially, re-enacting the artificial way in which we make sense of the world. For me, the act of layering is the opposite of the void. Once you see the layers, you realize that these are all we have: the layers paper over nothingness. By artificially altering my images in this way, I am saying that we must transcend human constructs. We have to reach beyond man-made images towards something more ancient and enduring. Something more fundamental. Q: How do you view your own role as photographer? As a photographer, it is important to remember that you’re only a subjective mediator. When I go down to photograph I usually have a plan, but I am also open to the unexpected. Protestors during the revolution (Jan, 2011) 22

Q: When photographing on the streets of Cairo, how do you select your subjects? I believe that, to be really true, you have to be both personal and universal. That is why I look for individuals – and for details – that tell a story about the immediacy of unfolding events but also speak to the universality of a situation. I look for the general and the timeless, for subjects who transcend their immediate context and lend themselves to allegory. Q: In what ways does your own gender, as a female photographer working on the streets of Cairo, affect your work? I am frequently asked this question. In the West, there is an assumption that, as a woman living and working in Egypt, I must somehow be oppressed. My images are invariably read as a form of resistance to the dominant male discourse. Meanwhile, back home, I encounter a general incredulity around my work and the topics I choose to explore. Having said that the quality of my work, as a photographer, depends a great deal on how my subjects react to me and, here, my gender definitely comes into play: my photographs reflect the different ways in which people respond to me, as a female photographer, and I manipulate this as much as I can. In “Uppekha”, for instance, I entered this traditionally male-dominated space, camera in hand, inverting conventional power relationships to ‘shoot’ the soldiers. Their response to my presence, as a woman, in their midst, has become part of the ‘facts’ documented in these images.

Political graffiti in the streets around Tahrir Square

I know that I am going down one particular route, but on that route there is chance; I relish that interplay of chance circumstances with my original plan. In this way, you could say, I create a space for possible outcomes. But, in the end, all photography is subjective or partial; it necessarily imposes some degree of subjectivity on the world. Q: In the text accompanying “Uppekha”, you speak of unmasking the stereotype of masculinity and power What do you mean by that? In both “Uppekha” and “Unfolding”, I reflect on the artificiality of the stereotypes and clichés we use to define our place in the world. I also explore the role of photography with respect to power and powerlessness – the way in which the image can be used both to unmask, and to perpetuate, particular systems of belief.

During the 18 days of protest in Tahrir Square, when the world turned upside down, I was surprised to find our traditional ideas of the army as defenders of the nation begin to crumble- something I thought was solid suddenly seemed impossibly fragile, wafer thin. By photographing the young, vulnerable soldiers in the square, I try to unmask stereotypes of masculinity and power that we’ve long been laboring under, in Egypt, by showing the vulnerability, even femininity, they hide. Images of power, like those of gender or ideology, are intricate composites of signs and codes that we all recognize, and instinctively respond to, thanks to our shared heritage. In “Unfolding” I invert the idea of the warrior: the myth of the soldier, or the valour of the Samurai. All we really have are the mere images of military might and human prowess; but these are only ideas and beyond them is the void.

Q: In “Uppekha” you draw on your own images, taken in Tahrir Square. But, by the time you get to “Unfolding,” you draw on the pool of ‘iconic’ images of the Egyptian revolution circulating on the internet. What changed? During the revolution, photography underwent a kind of ‘democratisation’in Egypt as thousands of citizens took to the streets using pocket cameras and mobile phones to capture, and share, their own personal experiences of history. In the general chaos, images came to stand in for reality, and they also became potent symbols of change. Take for example the physical attacks on images of Mubarak, where protestors tore long gapping holes in portraits of the former president; or the parents of young protestors killed during the uprisings, who came to Tahrir Square, day in day out, brandishing photographs of their

dead children and demanding retribution. Where, under Mubarak, the image was used to confirm the stranglehold of the former regime, now it had become a rallying cry for its destruction. I wanted to say something about this ‘fickleness’ of the ubiquitous image. So, in “Unfolding”, I chose to juxtapose my own portrayals of police brutality alongside examples of the thousands of images circulating on the internet. After all, there isn’t a single vantage point but millions of views. Q: There is a timeless quality in all your work; as though time has frozen or is standing still. Why do you prefer to depict in a timeless way, political events that are very much linked to a specific moment in time and to history? I see things as being timeless and eternal. At the same time, I believe that everything is motion and that the static, or constant, state is impossible to achieve. You can see this dual notion of time, for example, in the postcard backdrops I use in ‘Uppekha”. Here, the postcards are a metaphor for an altered, or suspended, situation where the logic of our everyday lives no longer applies. However, the postcard, by its very nature, also embodies notions of nostalgia for a time gone by – in the very act of transposing the soldiers onto postcards I have relegated them to memory and to history. Q: You radically de-contextualise your protagonists, transporting them into otherworldly settings Why is setting so important to you? Maybe, ultimately, this is my own desire, to be transported myself! By removing my protagonists from their original context in Tahrir, I force you to look at them, to read them, in ways not possible if I’d left them ‘in situ’. The young soldiers in “Uppekha” seem all the more effeminate and bewildered when seen against the utopian, European settings. Meanwhile, the violence of ‘Unfolding” seems even more pointless and gratuitous when relocated to otherworldly setting of Japenese Zen landscapes. What is more, in choosing backdrops, such as the screens in “Unfolding”, I engage with an additional layer of meaning in my work. The screens come already ‘laden’ with the subtexts of their original use and purpose. In this way, I set up a conversation with something pre-existing, because, in 24

Political graffiti in the streets around Tahrir Square

the end, that is how we all navigate reality: our subjectivity does not ‘come first”, there was always something there before. All photographers are, in the end, mediating the world through pre-existing images and ideas. Q: Your work is often described as political, but is that the intention behind it? To me, my work is visceral rather than political. People may call this political but it is how I see the world. I see this work as being very emotional rather than political. The political dimension is just a by-product –perhaps for the audience it is political but the intention behind the work is highly personal.” Q: Horror is frequently a theme in your work? Why is that? I see horror is an inherent aspect of life. Human relationships, love, go hand in hand with the ability to mutilate and destroy. We humans have an uncanny potential to carry love and horror equally within ourselves. In “Unfolding” I use the iconography of horror to depict the violence of the state against unarmed protestors. Peering through the undergrowth and foliage, you see disjointed and dismembered body parts. Your imagination is triggered so much more by what you cannot see, or what you can only partially see. That is the essence of horror. Q: You have been criticized for making ugly subjects beautiful. Certainly, in “Unfolding”, you have embedded violent images of brutality into visually appealing works. Why is beauty so important to you? I look for beauty all the time. Once you stop looking for beauty then you lose hope. When you are still looking for beauty then there is still hope. The thing to remember is that beauty is not pleasant or idyllic, it is selfish, it wants more. It takes and it does not give back. You think it is giving you something back during that fleeting moment of but it really is not. In “Unfolding”, the aesthetic appeal of the work draws you in, it beguiles you, and this makes the shock of the violence depicted so much greater. This is because beauty is the flipside of horror: in order for beauty to exist, then there must also be horror. If we are to survive, we have to accept the opposites that are inherent in life. Q: You use humour and even playfulness in

your work, even to depict horror. What is its importance for you? I don’t like to take things too seriously. I think humor is very important. While my humour may be caustic but it is there and sometimes it reveals. In “Unfolding” as well as “Upekkha” I use humour to deliver my message: as black as it might be we are still laughing, but here it is more like laughing at an awful situation that we have created ourselves. Q: There is a circularity in your themes; you never allow the viewer a single vantage point, or a single moral narrative; your meaning is always fluid. Why? Yes, I set up binary oppositions in my work but then subvert them. As you read into my images, you realize that they don’t allow you a single vantage point. I present you with a stereotype, then I unmask it, only present you with a second stereotype that is, in turn, unmasked. This ‘back and forth’ is given precedence, in the work, over any perceived morality or message. I am reminding viewers that any single point of view, any single take on reality, is invariably a subjective one. Q: There is a marked difference in the physical size of the works in “Uppekha” and “Unfolding”. Why have your images become smaller over the course of 2011-2012? “The size of the works in “Unfolding” is important for me. They are not trying to make a big statement. They are inviting the viewer to come in closer, whispering their message, and ironically this lends itself to intimacy. It is only once you move in close that you are confronted with the full force of the violence, but, by then, it’s too late. I respond to people’s unwillingness ‘to see’ by luring them into close proximity with the very same horror that they wish to avoid.” Maybe I am a sadist.

Protestors carry the injured (Nov, 2011)

the absence of reality and the limits, of individual vantage points. You can’t have a single picture that encapsulates everything. You have to see them together to see it makes sense, just like the Alexandria Quartet (one of my favourite novels, by the way.) What’s more, the cumulative nature of the series, of image upon image, somehow frees the individual image from ‘the anecdotal’. It forces us to confront the image. The constructed nature of representation becomes more apparent when the images are seen in sequence. There is a certain power, or insistence, in this iteration.

Q. All your works exist in series form. Is it important for you that we read your individual images as part of a series?

Q: As a Western-educated woman, working in the Middle East, are you not, in the end, a prisoner of the categories that you seek to invert?

I always look for a perfect shot that will fall into a given series rather than a perfect shot that will stand on its own. Perhaps the meaning of my work emerges from the message being said from many different angles. This work has to do with

Well, that really is the dilemma in a nutshell, isn’t it? As a Western-educated woman, my work draws on symbols, and images, from world heritage. Perhaps that is why my works are intelligible in the West. At the same time, I live in

(and take my inspiration from) the Middle East, and yet, I want to produce works that do not fall into the binaries of how West-views-East and vice versa. But, how do I articulate my place in this no-man’s land? What language do I use to express what I am not, rather than what I am? I guess I am searching for a new, third language. Q: What gives you the greatest pleasure when you are working? Abandon for me is when I laugh with my subjects. Q: What is your greatest source of anxiety? Anxiety is when I don’t have the strength to turn the aggression of the people I meet, while photographing, into a more balanced work.

Protestors carry the injured (Nov, 2011)

Q. All your works exist in series form. Is it important for you that we read your individual images as part of a series?

Q: As a Western-educated woman, working in the Middle East, are you not, in the end, a prisoner of the categories that you seek to invert?

The graffiti reads: Egypt is an Islamic Country

www.nerminehammam.com

Nermine Hammam: Cairo Year One Presented by: The Mosaic Rooms, in association with Rose Issa Projects