Le Caire, la nuit au grand jour
Quand j ai commence cette serie sur la nuit au Caire (ou je reside), j avais besoin de me retrouver seule avec moi-meme, hors-cadre, loin de mon environnement quotidien et de sa charge mentale. Une echappee belle qui se caracterisait par une quete de solitude.
La marche a pied s est imposee. Commandant le rythme, elle a d abord ete arbitraire, puis reflechie, jusqu a me sortir des limites que je m etais imposee, poussee par la curiosite d en voir plus. En 1996, l anthropologue et sociologue Pierre Sansot avait mis en avant dans son ouvrage, La poetique de la ville, un concept « de lien analogique qui existerait entre les chemins de conscience et les avenues d une ville »? de quoi mediter sur ces routes aleatoires ou nous mene notre esprit?
La nuit, les autres sens prennent le relais, on se retrouve au centre de l histoire, on s ecoute, on se decouvre. On se retrouve face a soi.
La nuit ne m a jamais effrayee, elle est chez moi plutot propice au repos, a la meditation, a la reflexion, a la contemplation. J aurais pu juste marcher encore et encore, et vider ainsi le trop plein d emotions qui me submergeaient. Au lieu de ca, j ai pris mon appareil photo pour aller a la rencontre de ce monde intermediaire qui m attirait, de cet espace-temps particulier qui s anime a la tombee du jour alors que la plupart rentrent apres une journee de travail.
Que se passe t-il au Caire, la nuit ? Pourquoi travailler sur la nuit ?
Parce que « la nuit deplace les frontieres physiques, gomme l horizon, suspend le temps » (Espinasse et Buhagiar, psychosociologues, 2020). Parce que la nuit, tout semble tres different, meme si on sait que tout est identique la nuit, c est « l autre cote de la ville » (Luc Gwiazdzinski, geographe, 2005), son verso.
Chaque quartier ne vit pas la nuit de la meme maniere. Quand un quartier se vide ou s eteint, un autre s anime. Certains iront en famille ou entre amis se promener sur le pont Kasr Al Nile ou prendre l air sur une dahabeya toute illuminee d autres se poseront au pied des mosquees pour discuter comme a Sayeda Zeinab d autres encore s offriront plutot un petit tour en caleche vers le Khedive tree a Zamalek. La rue El-Moaz est toujours tres animee dans le Khan el-Khalili jusqu a 23h, et les cafes et marches du darb el-Ahmar sont toujours ouvert apres minuit. A Maadi, la jeunesse egyptienne se retrouve sous les luminaires pour manger et discuter jusque tard dans la nuit. Certains cairotes privilegient le soir pour jouer au football et il n est pas rare d en voir jouer encore a 2h du matin sur des terrains amenages entre deux tombes dans la Cite des morts. Quelle que soit l heure, on rencontre toujours une famille qui se promene, il y a souvent une fenetre allumee dans la nuit, on n est rarement seul?.peu importe ou mes pieds m ont menes, les nuits n ont jamais ete identiques.
La nuit, chacun voit la realite de maniere deformee, mais unique, a travers le prisme de sa propre identite. Il existe autant d interpretations de la nuit qu il y a d humains sur la terre ! Et si l obscurite modele, estompe, nuance, elle differencie et divise aussi la ville en plusieurs espaces (de nuit, de travail ou de plaisir).
Comme l ecrivait le geographe Luc Bureau en 1997, « a partir d un certain seuil d obscurite s opere une metamorphose de la ville ».
De fait, photographier la nuit en noir et blanc, est un parti-pris tres personnel. Neanmoins, la ville apparait dans sa dimension plus intime, plus graphique, plus poetique. Le clair-obscur raconte d autres histoires, selon que l on decide d appuyer sur l obscurite ou au contraire d eclairer certaines ombres... La serie qui decoule de ces soirees blanches propose donc a chacun de construire sa propre narration, d imaginer l histoire derriere la photographie, de donner libre court a son imagination et de rendre, peut-etre, sa part de reve et de mystere a la nuit.
Car la ville se fait plus mysterieuse et feerique, la nuit deposant comme une cape d invisibilite sur elle, masquant ainsi la misere et le superflu, ne laissant voir que l essentiel a travers sa mise en lumiere par l eclairage public (lieux de memoire et espaces communs - rues, quartiers) et prive. Cet eclairage urbain qui permet de multiples relectures de la ville.
D une invitation au voyage et au reve, la nuit urbaine a depuis longtemps depasse le registre de l imaginaire onirique. Colonisee par les activites diurnes, sur-exposee a un eclairage parfois trop puissant, la nuit urbaine devient progressivement un enjeu de taille. Territoire d experimentation et d innovation, elle invite a reflechir sur les questions de liberte, d insecurite, de transgression et d identification.
Cairo, night in the daylight
When I started this series on the night in Cairo (where I live), I needed to be alone with myself, out of the frame, far from my daily environment and its mental load. A beautiful escape that was imposed by a quest for solitude.
Walking was the obvious choice. At first it was arbitrary, then it was thoughtful, until I pushed myself beyond my self-imposed limits, driven by my curiosity to see more. In 1996, the anthropologist and sociologist Pierre Sansot had put forward in his book, The Poetics of the City, a concept of "analogical link which would exist between the paths of consciousness and the avenues of a city"... something to meditate on these random roads where our mind leads us...
At night, the other senses take over, we find ourselves in the center of the story, we listen to ourselves, we discover ourselves. We find ourselves face to face.
The night has never frightened me, it is rather favourable to rest, to meditation, to reflection, to contemplation. I could have just walked on and on, and thus emptied the overflow of emotions that overwhelmed me. Instead, I took my camera and went to meet this in-between world that attracted me, this particular space-time that comes alive at dusk when most people are going home after a day of work.
What happens in Cairo at night? Why work on the night?
Because "night displaces physical boundaries, erases the horizon, suspends time" (Espinasse and Buhagiar, psychosociologists, 2020). Because at night, everything seems very different, even if we know that everything is identical night is "the other side of the city" (Luc Gwiazdzinski, geographer, 2005), its reverse side.
Each neighborhood does not experience the night in the same way. When one neighborhood empties or dies out, another comes alive. Some people go with their families or friends for a walk on the Kasr Al Nile bridge or to take a breath of fresh air on an illuminated dahabeya others sit at the foot of the mosques to chat, as in Sayeda Zeinab still others take a short ride in a horse-drawn carriage to the Khedive tree in Zamalek. El-Moaz street is always very lively in Khan el-Khalili until 11pm, and the cafes and markets of darb el-Ahmar are always open after midnight. In Maadi, Egyptian youth meet under the lights to eat and chat late into the night. Some Cairoites prefer to play soccer in the evening and it is not uncommon to see them still playing at 2am on the fields built between two tombs in the City of the Dead. No matter what time of day you meet a family walking around, there is often a window lit at night, you are rarely alone....wherever my feet have taken me, the nights have never been the same.
At night, everyone sees reality in a distorted, yet unique way through the prism of their own identity. There are as many interpretations of the night as there are humans on earth! And if darkness models, blurs, nuances, it also differentiates and divides the city into several spaces (of night, work or pleasure).
As the geographer Luc Bureau wrote in 1997, "from a certain threshold of darkness a metamorphosis of the city takes place".
In fact, photographing the night in black and white is a very personal choice. Nevertheless, the city appears in its more intimate, more graphic, more poetic dimension. The chiaroscuro tells other stories, depending on whether one decides to press on the darkness or, on the contrary, to illuminate certain shadows... The series that results from these white evenings thus proposes to each one to build his own narration, to imagine the story behind the photograph, to give free rein to his imagination and to give back, perhaps, its share of dream and mystery to the night.
For the city becomes more mysterious and magical, the night depositing like a cloak of invisibility over it, masking the misery and the superfluous, letting only the essential be seen through its illumination by public lighting (places of memory and common spaces - streets, neighborhoods) and private. This urban lighting that allows multiple rereadings of the city.
From an invitation to travel and dream, the urban night has long since gone beyond the register of the dreamlike imagination. Colonized by daytime activities, overexposed to lighting that is sometimes too powerful, the urban night is gradually becoming a major issue. A territory of experimentation and innovation, it invites reflection on questions of freedom, insecurity, transgression and identification.
