6.3 x 9.5 IN / 16 x  24 CM 
80 pages, 47 plates
Swiss binding (lay flat), Text in English
ISBN-978-1-954877-23-8
Edition of 400
 
 
Cairo Dream
 
“I was born in Brooklyn​, New York to working class​ Egyptian parents in the last week of 1969. When I began​ photographing in Cairo, my intention was to reclaim my​ identity as an Egyptian and to engage in a dialogue about the​ environmental conditions that make up the city of Cairo. I​ set down my camera in public space imagining that I too​ could be objective. I was led to question my “American” way​ of thinking by events unfolding around me: a revolution,​ a military coup, and also, by the ways and generosity of​ everyday people.

I came to understand that the social implications of​ photography are very different in Egypt than in the US. In the​ US, many documentary photographers make photographs in​ ways which can be invasive or insensitive to others, because​ they believe it’s their right as individuals to do so. This​ way of thinking doesn’t hold a lot of water for Egyptians.​ Responsibility to one’s community over oneself is something I​ learned in Egypt.

I am considered an outsider in both countries I belong to. I’ve​ been stopped, detained and arrested while photographing​ in both countries and labeled an enemy in both countries;​ terrorist in the US, foreign spy or agitator in Egypt. The work​ of making the larger body of photographs which includes​ Cairo Dream, contains the duality of my insider and outsider​ identity. This identity keeps me one step in and one step out.”
 
- Anthony Hamboussi
 
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 currently teaches at City College in New York and lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.