Maha Maamoun

Works mainly with video and photography. Founder of the Contemporary Image Collective (CIC) in Cairo, an initiative that supports the development of photography and contemporary art in Egypt. Based largely on archival material, her works generate new contexts for images that function in the mass culture. These contexts afford an unprecedented reading of the images.

“Night Visitor” gathers video materials found on YouTube that were shot on 5th March 2011 during the night-time intrusion of protesters from Tahrir Square into the premises of the security services in Cairo. Recorded with mobile phones, the footage shows the rebels storming the seat of the security authorities, previously inaccessible for years, where Mubarak’s regime stored one of the largest archives concerning the political opposition. Yet, what the protesters find the most interesting are not the attributes of political power, remnants of documents and torture devices but the luxurious personal items, expensive furnishings and a belly dance costume found in a corner of a room.

The subtitle of the film “The Night of Counting the Years” originates from the classic film by Shadi Abdel Salam from 1969, considered until the present day as the best Egyptian motion picture. The film tells the story of a powerful Egyptian clan that trades in robbed mummies on the illegal antiques market. Along with Maamoun’s work, the film is concerned with the search for a modern Egyptian national identity, which this motion picture wrongly associates with the heritage of ancient Egypt. “The Night Visitor” is also a colloquial term for the practice of night arrests of political activists that Mubarak’s regime wanted to be kept quiet. The artist perversely reverses the meaning of this term by swapping the places between the visitors and the visited.