Cairo program concluded with succesfull exhibition

The final workshop in the Egyptian Language of Photojournalism programme was held at DEDI – The Danish Egyptian Dialogue Initiative in Cairo last week. The workshop concluded with a very succesfull exhibition in downtown Cairo, where 11 of the 12 participating Egyptian photographers showed their final stories.

Guests of the Framing Life exhibition on the opening night, Saturday June 18.
Framing Life was the title of the student exhibition that concluded the DMJX programme Language of Photojournalism, which was held over a period of 8 months in co-operation with DEDI – The Danish Egyptian Dialogue Initiative. Around 300 people visited the exhibition on the opening day. Photo: Søren Pagter
/DMJX

Back in November 2021, DMJX photojournalism held the first of four workshops for 12 selected Egyptian photographers. The educational programme was initiated and sponsored by DEDI – The Danish Egyptian Dialogue Initiative.

The first three workshops focussed on visual story tellling, portraiture and writing for photojournalists. After these workshops, the participants worked on their final stories. At the final workshop that was held last week, the final stories were edited, the texts were written and finally the programme concluded in an exhibition at Kodak Passageway in downtown Cairo.

In the following images, we take you back to the days of the final part of the programme that happened from the 12th to the 18th of June in Cairo.


Sunday, June 12th and Monday, June 13th
During the first two days of the workshop, all picture stories were edited in co-operation with Søren Pagter and the students received feedback by Gitte Luk on the first versions of their texts and worked on their second versions.

Lamees Saleh is making her pictures ready for her editing session during the first days of the Language of Photojournalism workshop at DEDI in Cairo. Photo: Søren Pagter/DMJX
Teacher Gitte Luk (left) is giving text feedback to student Gilan Hefny during the first couple of day of the workshop in Cairo. Photo: Islam Safwat
Teacher Søren Pagter editing the story of Sahl Abdelrahman. Photo: Shrouk Gnomin

Tuesday, June 14th and Wednesday, June 15th
After the first two days of feedback and editing, the students worked individually on finishing their stories. They made post production on their selected images and wrote the final versions of their text. During both days, the two teachers, Gitte Luk and Søren Pagter, were present and available to assist the students. All images and texts had to be ready for printing by Wednesday afternoon.

Gitte Luk correcting a final text to make it ready for print and exhibition.
Søren Pagter designing the exhibition after having seen all the stories. Photo: Ahmed Mostafa
A group of happy students and teachers after having handed everything in for printing late Wednesday afternoon. Photo: Elisabeth Vang Jørgensen /DEDI

Thursday, June 16th
Late Wednesday evening and Thursday, the images and texts were printed and cut to make them ready for the exhibition. The pictures were printed at CIC – Contemporary Image Collective and the texts were designed and printed at DEDI.

Printing at CIC – Contemporary Image Collective. Photo: Søren Pagter/DMJX
Emad Antar from CIC printed and cut all the around 140 images for the exhibition. Photo: Søren Pagter/DMJX
While the pictures and texts were printed, a technical team worked at Kodak Passageway setting up extra walls and making spotlights. Photo: Søren Pagter/DMJX

Friday, June 17th
All students and teachers met with the technical team at Kodak Passageway at 10am in the morning getting ready to hang every story according to the designs that were made in the class room. After nearly 16 hours of work, around 2am in the morning, the exhibition was almost ready. Two prints needed to be reprinted and hung before the opening the following Saturday.

Teacher Gitte Luk hanging pictures for a memory wall with random images from all the workshops and the process of making the exhibition. Photo: Shrouk Gnomin
Students and the technical team hanging Ahmed Mostafa’s project. Photo: Islam Safwat
Each picture and the texts were hung with four nails, one in every corner, directly on the walls. This created a rough, but coherent look. Photo: Moataz Zaki
Søren Pagter and Tarek Rady hanging Shrouk Gnomin’s story while she is checking the lines and order. Photo: Moataz Zaki

Saturday, June 18th
On the opening day, around 300 people visited the exhibition. Teacher Søren Pagter held an opening speech and together with teacher Gitte Luk, the two of them handed out diplomas to the 11 photographers, who had graduated the programme.

Exhibition poster hanging by the entrance before the opening. Photo: Søren Pagter/DMJX
Sahl Abdelrahman in conversation with a couple of guests about his project that i on display in the background. Photo: Søren Pagter/DMJX
As part of Sara Younes’ display, she had made an image that the guests could use as background for selfies: Photo: Søren Pagter/DMJX
An overview of the venue at Kodak Passageway, where the exhibition was open during four days. Photo: Søren Pagter/DMJX
A guest is reading in Islam Safwat’s notebook that was a part of his exhibition. In the notebook, you could see drawings and read statements from the protagonists in Islams story about sexual abuse. An Islam encouraged the visitors to write their own experiences in the book. Photo: Søren Pagter/DMJX
Many of the protagonists in the stories came to the opening. Here it is one of the fashion models from Gilan Hefny’s project who is being portrayed in front of an image of herself. Photo: Søren Pagter/DMJX

Sunday, June 19th till Tuesday June 21st
On the second day, 150 guests came to Kodak Passageway and both television and vloggers came to cover the event. In total, 1,000 visitors from different backgrounds: from professional photographers to amateurs to passer-bys came to see the show. Due to the succes, DEDI and the owner of Kodak Passageway decided to extend the show with one more day.

Sunday, the Egyptian National Television interviewed three of the exhibiting students. In the picture, it’s Mohamed Anwar, who is telling about his project. Photo: Shrouk Gnomin
Tuesday night and the exhibition has been taken down again. Team picture of the students, who took down all the images. Photo: Marwa Seoudi/DEDI