Ebb & Flow

Ebb & Flow is both an ode and a farewell to Cairo. Raised in its loudness, I learned silence as discipline,obedience shaping womanhood, rebellion defying it. Femininity lingered on my tongue as I questioned it, documenting this struggle through my friends

Ebb and Flow is a photography series that exists as both an ode and a farewell to my hometown, Cairo, a city that shaped me through its contradictions. It is a love letter steeped in dissonance, capturing the tension between belonging and estrangement, between silence and defiance.

Having been born and raised in the midst of Cairo’s relentless loudness, I learned early that silence was not just an absence of sound, but a form of discipline, an expectation of obedience, particularly for women. This discipline carved the boundaries of femininity, a construct that existed just beyond my grasp, yet governed every aspect of my being. To exist outside of its predetermined frame was an act of rebellion, and rebellion was met with resistance.

I found myself negotiating this struggle through photography, documenting not just my personal reckoning with womanhood but also the experiences of those around me. My friends became my collaborators, my mirrors, and together we forged a space that I define as sisterhood. This collective exploration became an act of reclaiming, of questioning what is innate and what is conditioned, of challenging silence and obedience to make way for a new vocabulary of resistance, one written in the language of intimacy, defiance, and care.