Cairo’s City of the Dead Travels to Paris in Guillot’s Photo Book

Walking through Cairo, where change is constant and inevitable, we’re greeted daily by the demolition of old landmarks and the rise of new structures. In these fleeting moments, all I can think of is the undeniable importance of documenting our urban landscape - the quiet testament to a city that never stands still, yet holds so much of its past in the cracks between the present.

In pursuit of preserving what time forgets, ‘La Cité Des Morts’, a photographic book of Cairo’s historical City of the Dead, was launched in November 2024. Through the lens and brush strokes of the late French artist Bernard Guillot, the book offers a lyrical collage, both visual and written, with each page unfolding a nuanced portrayal of this living burial site. Published by Origini Edizioni, an Italian photography publishing house that creates limited edition poetic and artistic hand-crafted photo books, the book immortalises a place where time and memory intertwine.

Bernard Guillot first arrived in Egypt in the late 1970s during his travels across the region. After completing his journey, he returned to Egypt and has since split his time between there and France. It was in Cairo that he developed a profound connection with Tintera Photographic Art Consultancy, where, in 2020, he held his first and only comprehensive solo exhibition. Tintera, located in Zamalek, was founded by Zein Khalifa, a London-based photographic consultant and practising photographer, and Heba Farid, an artist, curator, researcher and educator in photography who is based in Cairo.

“The City of the Dead has long been a source of fascination with him, and he photographed it for about 30 years or more, continuously, always going back and photographing more and more within that site,” Heba Farid, co-founder of Tintera, tells CairoScene.

Guillot’s enduring connection to the City of the Dead took shape through his dream of crafting his photographic book that would honour the enigmatic depth of this layered site. His esoteric approach - both mysterious and deeply emotional - imbues his work with a spiritual resonance. It’s as though he photographs not just with his eyes, but with his entire being, channelling his feelings into each frame. With Tintera’s support, he embarked on the careful process of sequencing the book - a task that was as much about distilling the essence of the place as it was about safeguarding his vision.

“He had put a sense of rhythm into the book. He added some small drawings, some small colour photographs in amongst the sequence of the photographs, because it was like a bigger language for him about the space,” Farid explains.

Although Guillot passed away in 2021 before the book could be completed, his vision lived on. Tintera and Origini took on the project, working from the unfinished dummy he left behind. With dedication, they brought the book to life, ensuring his work would finally resonate with the audience it was meant to reach.

“There was an urgency to Bernard finishing this book. 'The time is now,' he would often say, both foreshadowing what was to be his final book and the rapid changes that were soon to take place,” Zein Khalifa, co-founder of Tintera, tells CairoScene.

The book debuted at Polycopies, the photo book fair in Paris, in a limited edition that quickly found its audience. Its reception reflects the widespread interest in the City of the Dead, attracting architects, conservationists, urban planners and artists from all over the world.

“The opening image of the book is a fantastic, almost bird’s eye view of the City of the Dead, and in the background hand painted curtains are drawn to reveal a lake with a boat crossing to another world,” Khalifa adds. “In many ways Bernard’s work can be read as a journey towards the after-life with the City of the Dead being the final gateway. Bernard’s magic was in being able to transform everyday scenes into images of otherworldly places.”

Through his lens, Guillot offered an interpretation that is both deeply personal and universally resonant, capturing the quiet complexity of this remarkable place.

“And so his photographs are like a meandering through the City of the Dead. He's looking at the architecture, he's looking at the passageways, he's looking at how the sunlight and the shadow reflects in the different spaces, so he's, like with all of his work, he's looking for the emotional quality of what is there,” Farid elaborates.

Guillot, a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, was awarded the Prix Nadar in 2003 for his photobook, ‘Pavillon Blanc’. His work is housed in collections such as the Centre Pompidou, Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and the American University in Cairo. In these photographs, Guillot preserved fleeting moments, ensuring the ephemeral lives on in memory.

“Bernard's work, a multi-layered index of poetic photographic narrative, drives us into a world where time functions as a form factor for this place and as a depiction of a passage,” Ilias Georgiadis, Creative Director at Origini Edizioni, explains to CairoScene. “A collection of endless poetry that involves ruins of death, life passing by, life worth living, and life that exists in particular surroundings that define the rules of its psychogeography and after all, existence itself.”

Currently, his photographs of the City of the Dead are housed at Tintera’s gallery space, where visitors can immerse themselves in the timeless beauty and depth of his work.

“His body of work isn't produced in defined series which change style,” Farid says. “It's one continuous style of working, even though there might be different subjects within his bodies of work.”

Photography Credit: Bernard Guillot