Dépouiller is a photobook in the making, questioning how
a memory of a city is constructed, by two observers who
almost have nothing in common and are seemingly polar,
yet are on a similar quest. On one hand, myself, a 24-year-old
photographer who was born and grew up in a village in the Nile Delta.
On the other hand, Olivier Truchet, a 68-year-old bookshop owner who
was born and grew up in Marseille. After an unresolved first encounter,
we recognised that perhaps we have one thing in common, which is the
quest of reconstructing a memory of a home that only exists in our memories.

Through combining writings by Olivier Truchet and photographs
by Ebrahim Bahaa-Eldin, Dépouiller attempts to dissect the processes
that turn a city into a home, or cease it from being one.      

     The first time I met this man, shortly after
     I entered his bookshop in Marseille and introduced myself as a
     photographer, he told me that photography has ended, and no
     one should be a photographer anymore. He went on saying that
     there are too many photographs in the world now, and
      photography has become so easy that it means nothing anymore.
     I asked to take a portrait of him. He said he didn't care.

      After going to Paris to develop and print, I came back to 
      give him his portrait. He grunted, then smiled. 
      I then showed him other photographs I made in Marseille, 
      the city he was born in and has lived in for almost 70 years. 
      Later, he told me that my photographs had revealed something
      to him about his city that he thought he wouldn't recognise anymore.      

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