Rooftop Bunk

Rooftop Bunk

Rooftop Bunk

ahmad hosni

Prologue

This series was about a place. It was on a rooftop in Cairo so we called it The Rooftop.

In the topography of the Cairene landscape rooftops are ubiquitous relief. From a distance they spread peppering the surface. From a closer distance they condense into spatial knots. Morphing vantage points; always at a distance from the rest, always on the verge of social existence.

The Rooftop is where rooftop things happen. The name was a toponomy that begot its attributes from the cistern of categories. In Greek ‘category’ is a cognate of ‘accuse.’

Accused of being banal at best and meaningless at worst. Accused of rambling, of being sheer bunk. Accused being visibly invisible like an anonymous narrator.

That gaze was never intended but it existed nontheless. I only gathered what was left days before leaving: all that carelessly disregarded; all that was visual background never to be taken seriously. Those ‘environing objects’, as Hussrl would put it. Objects people, conditions, entities; they arrived in retard and gathered in retrospect. First came the stairs, then came the fridge, then came the artists and the photoseries. They have always been there; warping local worlds and circumscribing perceptions. They have been looking at each other, staring back at us; crying out ‘ we are family.’

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