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If grief was a city, it would be Cairo.
I walk through the city I call home; she feels like a stranger to me and I am a stranger to her. Its changing landscapes and neighborhoods, the endless brutal construction and destruction.
My Cairo no longer exists, and with its loss, I have been stripped of my sense of belonging and safety.
Her streets are like fragments of memories of a lost love or a loved one who died but their presence still lingers in every part of the city. Forced to shed the skin of the past, it has now become a place of departure.
Through this journey which felt like a farewell, and at times an embrace, I experienced an unexpected but profound shift in my relationship with my father – something that was once fractured. My father, who taught me about Cairo, who I share nearly all of my childhood memories with. Rebuilding a bridge that was once thought to be lost.
Endings and beginnings collide in a storm of grief, rage, and love; that rage is born from that very love and this love has nowhere to go now. It lingers in the air – impossible to ignore and refuses to fade no matter how much we wish it would.
Mother and the Nile. As I grew older, my mother’s love for the Nile became my own. I saw in it not only a river but a teacher, a protector, and a constant companion.
أمي والنيل. كبرت وورثت حب أمي للنيل. لم أعد أراه مجرد نهر، بل معلماً، وحامياً، ورفيقاً دائم الحضور.
Home, Mother.
بيتي، أمي.
“Maintenance and restoration of Qasr al-Nil lions, in coordination with the Antiquities Ministry”
“At last, I have found my freedom.”
"خلاص لاقيت حُريتي"
The back of a photograph that was gifted to my father in 1972 – “Dear Gamal, I gift you this photograph to show you my tight time at work and a memory for you so you could remember me and remember how the workshop looked like. February 1970, Karam El Ashmawi”
ظهر صورة أُهديت لوالدي في 1972.
The photograph of Karam (my father’s friend) in old Cairo in front of his workshop.
صورة كرم، صديق والدي، في مصر القديمة أمام ورشته.
Karam died, the workshop no longer exists, and nothing remained the same.
توفي كرم، واختفت الورشة، ولم يبقَ شيء على حاله.
Father, Cairo 1970.
والدي، القاهرة، 1970.
Father and I, Cairo 2025.
أنا ووالدي، القاهرة 2025.
Hana Gamal is an Egyptian photographer and visual artist, born and raised in Cairo. She holds a dual degree in Mass Communication & Media Arts, and Psychology, from the American University in Cairo. In 2021, she further expanded her practice by completing an advanced master’s program in Photojournalism at The Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX) in Aarhus, Denmark.
Her photographic journey began in 2011, and since then, photography has become both her voice and her deepest passion. Through an anthropological and psychological visual approach, her work reflects the passage of time, the fragility of memory, the inevitability of loss, and often the fragmented connection between the human soul and the external world – its impact on us and the fleeting nature of our existence. All these worlds flow together and become one.
Hana Gamal is an Egyptian photographer and visual artist, born and raised in Cairo. She holds a dual degree in Mass Communication & Media Arts, and Psychology, from the American University in Cairo. In 2021, she further expanded her practice by completing an advanced master’s program in Photojournalism at The Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX) in Aarhus, Denmark.
Her photographic journey began in 2011, and since then, photography has become both her voice and her deepest passion. Through an anthropological and psychological visual approach, her work reflects the passage of time, the fragility of memory, the inevitability of loss, and often the fragmented connection between the human soul and the external world – its impact on us and the fleeting nature of our existence. All these worlds flow together and become one.
