For LaoTseu: “the facade of a house does not belong to the one who owns it, but to the one who looks at it. but what about the inside.
All the buildings form the cities with streets with often a certain harmony, this is what we give to see of a district. In Cairo, the Downtown is made up of these harmonious ensembles, most of the buildings are from the same period and each competes with the others to be even more luxurious.
On the other hand, the interior of these buildings is much more heterogeneous, it gives meaning to this passage between the public and the private, it includes distinctive elements which provide information on the social dimension of the inhabitants.
Arnaud du Boistesselin lived in Cairo for fifteen years. His photographs are devoted to the richness and diversity of building interiors. It is an enhancement of a heritage much less visible than the facades. It transposes into the medium which is his own, this something from a past history which necessarily continues to forge strong links with the present. Quite simply because using every day, several times a day perhaps, the path of the spiral drawn by such and such a staircase, is also to physically inscribe in one’s own body the memory of the plan conceived for us by an architect. Random pages of mini-short stories by Jean-François Galletout give a very strong feeling of Cairo’s humanity.
Arnaud du Boistesselin : L’esprit de l’escalier
Images Plurielles Éditions, Marseille
Standard edition – 200 pages – 120 color photographs – Format: 29 x 23 cm
ISBN : 978-2-919436-49-1
www.imagesplurielles.com
