It is called the «City of the Dead», its real name is the cemetery of El-Arafa. More than 500,000 people live there on the outskirts of Cairo for lack of adequate means to stay elsewhere. For a paltry rent, they occupy small houses which traditional use is to receive families and friends at the time of the funeral of the owners. The place is on the Unesco World Heritage List but in a fragile situation because threatened by the increasing modernization of the capital.
I have no particular taste for cemeteries. In my country, I’d rather avoid them, as they have a macabre image for me. After my work on Varanasi, the sacred city of death in India, I wanted to continue my journey on the Egyptian land to explore if anything remained of the life-death-life’s cult since the disappearance of the pharaohs.
The City of the Dead is not a sad place. It seems unimaginable to us in the West but here people are not afraid of ghosts. Each family lives with a tomb in their home or yard and maintain it clean.
It was not so easy to get in but I feel very grateful for the trust these kind people gave me to allow me to carry out this project.
Natacha Mars, Cairo, september 2021