Cairo as My Studio: A Residency in Egypt
In 2020, I travelled to Cairo, Egypt, for a residency at Darb 1718 as part of the KLA Art Labs programme. I arrived at a moment when I was already deeply immersed in photographing cities, and Cairo offered an entirely different scale and rhythm from the Kampala I knew.
As the plane descended over the city, I photographed what was below me: dunes and a patch of green that appeared almost like an oasis in the desert. That first glimpse stayed with me throughout the residency.
I have always resisted the idea of having a studio. For me, four walls can sometimes become a limitation. I prefer to be moving, walking through streets and finding stories in places. In Cairo, this became even clearer. The city itself became my studio and my medium.
Walking the City
I spent many days walking through Cairo, observing its streets, architecture, people and rhythms. Coming from Kampala, a city that could often be crossed relatively quickly, Cairo's enormous scale was striking. Its vast network of roads, dense neighbourhoods, traffic and constant movement created a completely different experience of urban life.
Walking became my method of getting closer to the city.
Rather than moving directly between landmarks, I allowed the streets to guide my attention. I photographed bridges, buildings, roads, public spaces, and the everyday life unfolding around me.
During the residency, I also presented an exhibition at Darb 1718 titled Bridging the Nile, the Exodus. The exhibition brought together my photographic observations of Cairo and my ongoing interest in the Nile as a geographical and cultural connection between Egypt and Uganda.
The Nile became a particularly important thread in my work. The river that flows through Cairo has its source in Uganda, creating a direct connection between the two places that are part of my own experience.
I became interested in the bridges crossing the Nile—not simply as pieces of infrastructure, but as structures that connect communities, movement, histories, and places. Through photography, I began thinking about the Nile as a continuous thread linking landscapes and cities across East Africa and North Africa.
Photographs from my residency at Darb 1718, including Cairo's architecture, streets, bridges, the Nile, and works presented in the exhibition.
Following the Nile
The exhibition became an extension of my walking and photographic research. Moving through Cairo, I found myself constantly returning to the river and the bridges that cross it.
This work connected to my wider Invisible Citiesproject, through which I use photography to investigate how cities can be understood through their architecture, histories, cultures and people.
Cairo offered a way of looking at the Nile beyond its geography. It became a way of thinking about connections—between cities, between histories, and between places that may appear distant but are joined by the same river.
Looking Back
The Cairo residency gave me permission to slow down and look differently. It reminded me that photography does not always begin with a subject; sometimes it begins with movement.
Walking through Cairo, I was constantly confronted by scale, history and contrast—from the ancient presence of the city to its contemporary streets and infrastructure.
The experience of exhibiting Bridging the Nile, the Exodus at Darb 1718 also made the residency feel complete: the city became not only the place where I gathered images and ideas, but also the space where I could bring that work back into conversation with an audience.
Cairo was not simply a place I visited. For a period of time, I walked it, photographed it, studied it and allowed it to shape the way I understood cities.
That way of working continues to inform my journeys today.
