The shown sketches were completed before and during lockdown at the time of the pandemic.
Remembering, analyzing, and paying respect to my home city, Cairo in a year when I was unable to visit. This series is still a work in progress, and perhaps will never be completed; the poems of Ahmed Fouad Negm, the portraits of family members, and the memories of the 25th of January revolution inspired these pieces, alongside pictures taken over the last few years.

The ‘water tank’ motif reappears in a parallel project, Comforting Apocalypse in a more repetitive manner; it is based on a real water tower seen from the ring road in Cairo. It embodies the people of the city, the stability among chaos, and the overwhelming reality of collective trauma. 

Erect Your Fortresses by Ahmed Fouad Negm
Translated by Walaa Quisay
 
Erect your fortresses on our farmland
With our hard labor and toil
The Taverns are alongside the factories
And the prisons are in place of the parks
Let loose your dogs
On our streets
And lock us
In your prison cells
In the beds, our slumber dwindled
Now we sleep
To our content
The burden of ache was too heavy
We’ve been injured
And now we’ve had enough
Now we know
Who is behind our agony…
We now know ourselves
And we are assembled
Workers, Peasants
And Students
Our clock has ticked
So, we begin
To walk the road
Of no return
And victory is nearer to our eyes
And victory
Is near our hands