Studio Cairo

Studio Cairo was founded in 1956 by Mohamad Abo Hasireh, also known as Abo Jamil. He managed the studio for decades with his lifelong friend, who also went by the nickname Abo Jamil. The two photographers worked together. Studio Cairo used to be a refreshing stop in the hustle and bustle of the city of Nablus, which is the biggest shopping market in Palestine.

Until the late 1980s, clients from all backgrounds visited the studio attic and wore costumes and makeup, posing for photo sessions alone or with their families and loved ones. Abo Jamil developed and printed thousands of photos of his clients and friends, displaying his work on shop shelves and vitrines for decades. However, fewer clients showed up after the late 1980s, and Abo Jamil gradually removed his work from the shop windows. In 2006, he burnt his own archive.

Inass Yassin's project, which included a performance, public intervention, excavation of vernacular photography, and documentation of the process, made for a fascinating journey. The project used the site of the studio as a platform to engage the audience in a theatrical, playful act that involved them in the discussion about the social shift that occurred.

Abo Jamil took multiple shots of Yassin dressed and wearing makeup in the fashion of various clients photographed during the 1970s and 1980s. The public was invited to participate in wearing costumes and makeup to contribute to the production of more photos. The artist's intention was to create a substitute for the lost archive of this studio and to prepare some of these photos for presentation in the studio's public display windows. The photographer, who owned and ran the studio since 1956, burnt his own archive in 2006 when he realized that his city, Nablus, was not the same city he knew. He made this decision after being asked by researchers to digitize his work and realizing that at some point, he might lose control of the archive. He concluded that all the family and female portraits he had produced for decades, which he had hidden in his storage since the late 1980s until he burnt them in 2006, might cause him trouble if they were publicly exposed. He decided to circumvent this concern by getting rid of the archive and burning all his work.

Studio Cairo is just one example of how Inass Yassin engages with the politics and aesthetics of the shift that occurred within her community and surroundings.