WATCH: World Press Photo’s Cairo Public Programme

For the first time, World Press Photo’s Joop Swart Masterclass landed in Cairo this weekend, bringing with it a public programme and an intimate open-studio format offering a glimpse into this year’s participants and their projects.

We spent the day at Downtown Cairo’s Access Art Space, where a series of panels brought World Press Photo mentors into conversation with some of Egypt’s leading visual artists and documentary photographers, including former Masterclass participants and World Press Photo award winners.

We caught up with the programme’s organisers, Noor Chehabeddine and Charlotte Zajicek, to discuss why Cairo, what it means to work alongside the city’s photography community, and how a week-long residency for emerging photographers, alongside a day of public programming, came together. We also spoke with curator and mentor Tanvi Mishra about what it means to work and mentor within a medium “in crisis”.