City by the River - Cairo

In this series of drawings devoted to the city of Cairo, the artist laments the squandering of riches historically represented by the Nile River. She depicts impoverished residents pillaging ancient artifacts and other treasures from the mud of the riverbanks. These images refer to the "Eighteen Days" in which protests erupted in Tahrir Square—minutes from the Nile—against the police-state, leading to the removal of then-President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Drawing parallels between the fate of the country’s material heritage and its human potential, the series unfolds as a sequence of snapshots. Protestors appear as faceless crowds, while individuals aligned with the police and military forces that coordinated attacks on the Square resemble grotesques in a manner that recalls the bitingly satirical figures of James Ensor. A crocodile recurs twice: summoning an ancient god of the dead who—indifferent to human suffering—thrives against the backdrop of ransacked museums and murdered youth in the Square.