Image 1 of 1
Cairo Ring Road
9.5 x 6.5 IN / 24 x 16.5 CM
402 pages
ISBN-978-1-7335212-6-0
Artist Book
Edition of 12 signed and numbered
In Cairo Ring Road, photographer Anthony Hamboussi presents a striking visual study of Cairo’s urban peripheries in the years surrounding the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Made between 2009 and 2014, the project captures a rapidly transforming city during a fleeting moment of relative openness—when the fall of Mubarak’s regime briefly lifted restrictions on public space, and a large-format camera could still move freely through the landscape.
Working along Cairo’s elevated Ring Road, Hamboussi documents the contradictions of a metropolis suspended between decay and unchecked development. His photographs reveal a city defined by informal housing, stalled construction, environmental degradation, and the architectural traces of deep inequality. Yet this is not a story of ruin, nor one of revolution alone. Instead, Hamboussi offers a nuanced portrait of Cairo in transition—its tensions, absences, and aspirations rendered in rigorous, lyrical compositions.
Neither fully outsider nor native, Hamboussi approaches Cairo through the lens of a diasporic Egyptian whose familial roots ground a perspective both intimate and distant. His work resists spectacle and sentimentality, favoring restraint over rhetoric. Avoiding the clichés of both government-sponsored boosterism and Western colonized image, Cairo Ring Road presents an archive of a city rarely seen—its edges, its scars, and its fragile beauty.
This book is a rare document of a city—and a country—caught in a moment of upheaval and possibility. It is also a testament to what photography can reveal when it moves slowly, attentively, and with care.
About the Author
Anthony Hamboussi is a photographer, born in Brooklyn, New York in 1969. His work has been exhibited in the Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, International Center of Photography, MoMA/PS1, Americas Society, Queens Museum and SculptureCenter, New York. He has published two monographs, Newtown Creek: A Photographic Survey of New York’s Industrial Waterway and Cairo Ring Road. He has co-authored two books; What is Affordable Housing? with the Center for Urban Pedagogy and LIC in Context with Place in History. Hamboussi has received grants from the Aaron Siskind Foundation, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Jerome Foundation, En Foco, and the New York State Council on the Arts in Architecture, Planning & Design. He is the founder of L Nour Editions a non-profit publisher specializing in photo books by artists from the Middle East and their diaspora. Hamboussi lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.
9.5 x 6.5 IN / 24 x 16.5 CM
402 pages
ISBN-978-1-7335212-6-0
Artist Book
Edition of 12 signed and numbered
In Cairo Ring Road, photographer Anthony Hamboussi presents a striking visual study of Cairo’s urban peripheries in the years surrounding the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Made between 2009 and 2014, the project captures a rapidly transforming city during a fleeting moment of relative openness—when the fall of Mubarak’s regime briefly lifted restrictions on public space, and a large-format camera could still move freely through the landscape.
Working along Cairo’s elevated Ring Road, Hamboussi documents the contradictions of a metropolis suspended between decay and unchecked development. His photographs reveal a city defined by informal housing, stalled construction, environmental degradation, and the architectural traces of deep inequality. Yet this is not a story of ruin, nor one of revolution alone. Instead, Hamboussi offers a nuanced portrait of Cairo in transition—its tensions, absences, and aspirations rendered in rigorous, lyrical compositions.
Neither fully outsider nor native, Hamboussi approaches Cairo through the lens of a diasporic Egyptian whose familial roots ground a perspective both intimate and distant. His work resists spectacle and sentimentality, favoring restraint over rhetoric. Avoiding the clichés of both government-sponsored boosterism and Western colonized image, Cairo Ring Road presents an archive of a city rarely seen—its edges, its scars, and its fragile beauty.
This book is a rare document of a city—and a country—caught in a moment of upheaval and possibility. It is also a testament to what photography can reveal when it moves slowly, attentively, and with care.
About the Author
Anthony Hamboussi is a photographer, born in Brooklyn, New York in 1969. His work has been exhibited in the Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, International Center of Photography, MoMA/PS1, Americas Society, Queens Museum and SculptureCenter, New York. He has published two monographs, Newtown Creek: A Photographic Survey of New York’s Industrial Waterway and Cairo Ring Road. He has co-authored two books; What is Affordable Housing? with the Center for Urban Pedagogy and LIC in Context with Place in History. Hamboussi has received grants from the Aaron Siskind Foundation, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Jerome Foundation, En Foco, and the New York State Council on the Arts in Architecture, Planning & Design. He is the founder of L Nour Editions a non-profit publisher specializing in photo books by artists from the Middle East and their diaspora. Hamboussi lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.