Diwan Publishing’s ‘Cairo Rooms’ Maps the City’s Domestic Spaces   

Cities are so often understood through their landmarks. The official narrative, the headline, the postcard image. A valid way of seeing a place, sure, but one that often flattens entire livelihoods, histories and cultures in the process.

Diwan Publishing’s latest book, Cairo Rooms, attempts the opposite, reading Cairo through the intimate scale of its rooms. Kitchens, bedrooms, balconies, bathrooms and living spaces are photographed, chronicled and explored, each becoming a portrait not only of the person who inhabits it but of the city itself.

Rooms belonging to contemporary artists Huda Lutfi and Motaz Nasr, MAD Solutions co-founders Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab, and Iranian journalist Amir-Hussein Radjy are among the more than 35featured in the book.

Together, they create an alternative photographic exploration and history of contemporary Cairo. What emerges is an unofficial record in print, one that enters the archive through the everyday rather than the monumental.

The book was initiated by photographer Yehia El-Alaily, who approached Nadia Wassef,  Diwan Bookstore co-founder, to ask if she would be interested in a book about his ongoing photographic practice documenting places and rooms across Cairo.

Wassef told him she wasn't particularly passionate about interiors, but suggested a different question: how does a city like Cairo translate into the homes of people working in its arts and culture scene? How does this culture manifest in private, intimate spaces? And so their journey began.

She then felt the need for a different, younger perspective, so she invited art historian Zein Blanks to co-author the book. The result is eight chapters, each written by a different author and dedicated to a different room. Kitchens, bedrooms, balconies, bathrooms, living rooms, entrances and more, as if the reader were walking through a home.

“We’re not putting out pretty pictures of pretty interiors. The photography is spectacular, but the parallel concern is to talk about lived experience, how cities and spaces dialogue with one another,” Wassef tells CairoScene.

When asked how the people and spaces were chosen, Wassef responds candidly.

“This book evolved just like Cairo does, through encounters, networks, friendships and constant dialogue. And some cold calls to emerging artists and cultural practitioners, courtesy of Zein Blanks, the co-author.”

The younger voices and spaces in the book, Wassef credits to Blanks, including those of 26-year-old Egyptian painter Omar Gabr, whose studio is in Shoubra.

The creative team also includes Emma James, whose art direction and thoughtful styling helped shape the visual identity and atmosphere of the rooms, and Ghalia Elsrakbi, who oversaw the book’s art direction and design.

The book elevates the micro, the lived experience and, as Wassef puts it, presents a fragmented truth. “This book presents Cairo as a Cubist painting. There is no single truth about a city. You look at the same subject through multiple angles and arrive at a fragmented truth.”

Cairo Rooms is now available for pre-order through Diwan’s website.