Public Performance
Photography series, 2016–2019
28 digital inkjet prints
Installation: 7 × 5 in. each, framed; overall dimensions variable
Edition of 3 + AP / exhibition print  

In Public Performance, Mai Al Shazly documents the quiet theatricality of urban life in Cairo, focusing on how residents shape and personalize the entrances to their homes. These domestic thresholds, often overflowing with ornaments, faux columns, plastic plants, or religious icons, reflect both collective cultural codes and deeply individual expressions of identity.

The work draws attention to the visual language of what might be called “kitsch”—arrangements that blur the lines between public and private, intentionality and improvisation. Some entrances are meticulously composed, others left to fade with time. Together, they read as stages in a silent performance of belonging, aspiration, and survival in a densely populated city.

Featured in the exhibitions;
Paris Biennale Des Photographes Du Monde Arabe Contemporain 2019.
 
Installation View: Cité Internationale des Arts (Sept/Oct 2019).