Egypt’s Mohamed Mahdy Explores Asir’s Landscape in Hayy Jameel Exhibit

Egyptian visual artist Mohamed Mahdy is presenting a new photographic series capturing the landscapes and lived memory of Saudi Arabia’s Asir region, as part of the Kingdom Photography Award Exhibition. The exhibition opens on April 30th at 8:30 PM at Hayy Jameel in Jeddah and runs until May 25th.

Mahdy’s series, titled ‘When the Fog Whispers’, is drawn from his recent journey through the mountainous southwest, alongside fellow artists invited to document the region. His photographs, known for their quiet attention to place and narrative, focus on themes of connection, heritage, and collective memory.

“One resident told me, ‘we don’t call it a village; we call it watan.’ This word carries more weight than ‘home’—it expresses a pride in the land that is bigger than the physical span of a small place,” Mahdy tells SceneNowSaudi. “I followed individual memories from the environments and people I met. At the end, it forms a collective memory—a collective journey—and I hope people can look at each other and everything around them as part of one idea: that everything is connected.”

Mahdy’s work is exhibited alongside ‘In a New Light’, which features work from the 30 winners of this year’s Kingdom Photography Award. Together, the exhibitions explore evolving visual narratives within the Kingdom, offering distinct perspectives on place, identity, and cultural transformation.

Known for his documentary approach and projects focused on preservation, Mahdy brings a poetic visual language to the Asir landscape—part of Hayy Jameel’s continued commitment to showcasing regional stories through contemporary photography.