“I had all kinds of tactics to prevent myself from going totally crazy.” my aunt used to say while remembering her riddled childhood in a suffocating domestic environment. One of her most effective ones sought to channel her frustration by tearing up stacks of paper, which she would hide beneath her bed. The image of a young girl tearing her anger away remained in my memory. Maybe for that reason, I felt strongly drawn to Cairo’s walls, of which many have been inscribed with the ebb and flow of paper-torn campaign posters. Their growing disappearance inspired reflections on collective memory and the passing of time in Egypt’s rapidly changed public space. In fact, their fragmented overlapping layers resonated with my own withering memories of the uprising, as if I had found a texture for the fleeting images that became more difficult to recollect.
Another reference struck me also as distinctive: the remains of eyes and ears evoke a strong metaphor in a city haunted by constant state surveillance. They translated quite literally into an atmosphere of paranoia where even walls appear to be listening and watching.
