Family Cairo
2002-Ongoing (This collection was a part of various exhibitions in 2007, 2008)
Text by Aleya Hamza
Ahmed Kamel’s series of photographs entitled “Sowar Min El Salon” are poised somewhere between studio portraits and every day snapshots of family members. The subject of this series is a number of Cairo residents that have been photographed with their family members in the context and privacy of their own homes. Their reserved poses and the ways in which they approach the camera with their gaze locate the images within tradition of studio portraiture, which has its roots in the age-old genre of portraiture painting. These images are not of stolen moments. They are images taken with the consent of the sitter(s), as if they were complicit in pausing time for a split second so that the photographer can jump in and capture his still images.
Nothing about the images is contrived as such. But the negotiation between attention to and disregard for formal gestures (at the level of the attitude of the subjects, or the degree of control that the photographer exercises in composing his pictures) implies that the images are constructed, if subtly, to create the illusion of reality - a quality accentuated by the documentary aesthetic employed in the series as whole. So while the images do bear resemblance to photos from a family album, nuanced details from attitude to dress code (the women in particular) suggest that the subjects have made a distinction between these two types of images, at least in the ways in which they will later be consumed.
Kamel leaves the door open for us to get a glimpse of his fascination with domestic interiors and their inhabitants. Some of the images in this series have been shot in the Salon, a marker of class identity, wealth and status as well the domestic space reserved for formal social functions. Their various styles in which these spaces are often designed and decorated speak of the collective taste and habits of a particular social class, and the appearances this group wishes to maintain.
In each of the photos, a tension exists between the background and the posing subjects almost as if they were competing against each other for attention. The interiors are loaded with visual fragments of personal histories, tastes, and aspirations, whether it’s a framed photograph of an embracing bride and groom hanging on the wall next to an imposing image of a matriarchical figure clad in the traditional black, or the large-scale wallpaper/poster depicting a lush paradisical landscape at odds with the harshness of urban reality.
Dense textures, intricate patterns and warm hues frame parents sitting close to their children. The atmospheric quality surrounding these portrayals evokes a romanticization of the dominant institution of marriage and the nuclear family as an ideal social unit (in the face of its steady disintegration). Nonetheless, in the visible distance between the photographer and his subjects, we are allocated an entry point for observation, reflection and introspection.
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