new eyes, old city

Have you ever wanted to look at the world with new eyes? This creative course explores the idea of everyday environment visually. Our everyday world is made up of objects, which we navigate in our daily routines. The course will focus on the social fabric of Cairo and invites you to examine your personal relationship to the city.

To photograph is to be human as well as a basic form of expression and communication. People everywhere make images; we use photographs to document our daily lives, to celebrate important moments and to communicate certain ideas. Image making is a global language. It succeeds where verbal or text based communication fails. Photographs allow us to understand our surroundings and our role within society.

The simple act of taking a photograph can open up a discourse on society to reveal our personal position within a culture. Does the everyday provide a platform for conformity, or is it a place where conformity is resisted? How do we negotiate our roles in a society on an every day basis? This course will probe the boundaries of everyday assumptions to create new ways of seeing. The study of the everyday will be enriched by writings by key visual culture thinkers such as Jacques Rancière, John Berger and Ben Highmore.

what to expect

Participants are expected to submit a selection of photographs each week related to the outlined topic.

Participants are further expected to engage with weekly assigned readings and voice their opinion in-class discussions.

Participants are expected to produce a trimester-long individual or group project in the form of still or moving imagery.

Participants need to have access to a camera, this can be as high/low quality as you wish. Occasionally you will be asked to print out images.

why apply

To gain a new awareness of the everyday and see your surrounding with different eyes

To improve your ability to draw from observation and be able to communicate what you see and think

To understand the context of images through discussion on art theory, philosophy and anthropology

To discuss the nature of photography as a visual representation of the everyday

To creatively understand the role of the self within the social fabric of Cairo