25 portraits, 25 stories, 25 of January Revolution. 5 years on
Prior to the momentous Arab Spring that thrust the country into the global spotlight in 2011, MÁSTESÓN set up a studio, where we portrayed 80 Egyptians who agreed to tell their stories about life in Cairo before, during and after the revolution. The result was a photo essay that captured a changing Egypt through everyday people. Five years later, they returned to find these men and women now living in a culture of fear.
We made this project in an old Vila in the center of Cairo where we settled in two rooms connected, one as a studio, and the other one to make video interviews, always connecting our works and sharing our feelings.
Since January 2011 the increasing number of killings, tortures and detentions have been widely documented by local and foreign NGO's but all the civil society sources consulted agree that things are far worse since El-Sisi took power.