Egyptian photography

Photograph by Maha Maamoun

One of our favourite art critics, Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, reviews one of our favourite writers, Maria Golia, who has just published a book on the history of Egyptian photography, and finds that Photography and Egypt: 

..does not even try to jam its subject into an elegant or orderly art-historical narrative. Rather, it traces the development of photography in Egypt over the last 170 years through a chaotic and unruly field of social, political and economic contexts. Golia does not view the medium in isolation, nor does she focus solely on its aesthetic attributes or technological advancements. Instead she considers photography as a dynamic practice whose means and ends cannot be disentangled from the overlapping twists and turns of the country’s history.

Photograph by Hala Elkoussy

Golia also points out how Egypt is connected to the earliest beginnings of photography, and is one of the most photographed landscapes ever. We have been waiting expectantly for this book to come out--how can we get a copy?