Ebrahim Bahaa-EldinPhotographer, curator and anthropologist, between Cairo and Paris

Biography

Ebrahim Bahaa-Eldin is a photographer, curator and anthropologist based between Cairo and Paris. His work is driven by an anthropological inquiry into space, time and memory, and how we construct our belonging to them. He is currently concerned with the binary of care and conquest in contexts of urban topography, personal histories and cultural expressions.

His practice is entirely analogue and intentionally slow. He photographs and hand-prints every image himself, allowing the materiality of the process to echo his central questions about time, change and belonging.

He is the founder of Sūph Books, an independent photobook publisher based in Cairo.

studio@ebrahimbahaa.com  ·  Instagram

Exhibitions

Awards & Residencies

Press & Publications

Index

    © 2026 Ebrahim Bahaa-Eldin
      Ebrahim Bahaa-Eldin






      Dépouiller(2025-Present)
      What to Do When you Cannot Hold a Mountain Between Your Arms? (2021-Present)

      Siwa for M Le Monde (2026)
      Cairo for Financial Times HTSI? (2025)


       Ben Weaver for The World of Interiors(2025)

      Khashm Al ‘Aish (Mouth of Bread)(2022)


      Selected Portraits



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      What to Do When You Cannot Hold a Mountain Between Your Arms?'
      is a long-term photography project that explores a personal memory of
      the city and examines the two ends of the spectrum of our relationship
      to our surroundings, care and conquest, through questioning the policies
      of urban development and preservation.      




         




           'A question found its way to my notebook some time ago. I had no answer back then.
           The question left me with nothing but the heaviness of ignorance.
           Slowly, some answers started to be stacked below the question.
           'You walk along its slopes', I answered.      'Perhaps the physical disparity registers', I added.
           'Or you walk away and put it behind your back, but its shadow will follow you as your
           foot tries to make the earth rotate faster, hoping to push the mountain further behind you.
           You might come back, this time just to take a photograph, but the photograph wouldn't
           fit in your pocket, or it would be too heavy to carry around.

           You might bring others, show them around, and think maybe together you would find a way.
           On another day, you might come back, this time with dynamite, ready to turn the mountain
           inside out, thinking that only then, you would manage to hold it between your arms.
           On a different day, you might come back, this time just to stand there, do nothing,
           and see if the mountain would hold you.'      








      Copyright © 2026 Ebrahim Bahaa-Eldin All Rights Reserved.