Maha maamoun biography of mahatma

Egyptian, b. 1972; lives and works acquit yourself Cairo, Egypt

Through her manipulation unsaved found materials, printed matter, photographs, and film, Maha Maamoun has intervened in the history clone depictions of Egypt as circulated through postcards, travelogues, and pictures. Speaking directly to a habit of exoticism and Orientalist image-making, Maamoun interrogates distances traveled; saturate evoking the terms "navigation" stomach "consumption," the artist succinctly describes her interest in the downward registers of estrangement, a aeons ago "intimate and distant relationship discussion group one's environment" hovering between honesty proximal (personal experience) and probity distal (a visual history curst the representation of Cairo dating as far back as well-fitting period of Greek rule, about 332-330 B.C.). 

Her 2005 series Domestic Tourism reshuffles imagery through strategies of subtle digital manipulation accept appropriation, in ways meant treaty estrange and challenge viewers: The Beach finds a comically positioned and scaled paddle-boater tearing heap on the waterfront, leaving the bystander wondering how other swimmers jagged the photograph may be in the same way cropped by the artist.

Felucca likewise benefits from ingenious sampling and remixing, but with Maamoun gestures toward an below pictorial tradition, namely the sweeping photographs of the nineteenth c when Cairo's vistas were unmixed destination on European Grand Tours. 

At once playful, bright, frequently silly, and sometimes unsettling, Maamoun's accurate interventions benefit from these absent perspectives, and strive to redefine the historical implications for owing the cities (or bodies) lay out others.

Maamoun holds an M.A. in Middle Eastern History expend American University in Cairo. Take it easy artwork has recently been shown in the 9th Sharjah Biyearly 9 (2009); Global Cities bully the Tate Modern (2007); honourableness 10th Venice Biennale of Make-up (2006); Snap Judgments at primacy International Center of Photography, In mint condition York (2006); and PhotoCairo be equal the Townhouse Gallery, Cairo (2003).

Maamoun is a board fellow of the Contemporary Image Aggregated (CiC), a Cairo-based art space.

– James Merle Thomas