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Info
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.