City of the Dead

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Photographer

Alina Fedorenko
Date of Photograph

June 2017
Website

https://alina-fedorenko.com

The city of the dead is an ancient cemetery that is a residential neighborhood for the very poor people in Egypt. Cairo's alternative for those who are the poorest live in the City of the Dead slum between graveyards. A live between tombs and mausoleum structures, where people live and work amongst the dead. The settlement is far from legal, but the Egyptian government has long since given up on evicting residents. Doing so would require the unattractive proposition of moving the inhabitants to state-built apartments or forcing the creation of alternate slums. Most of the residents take care of the graves or places, next to many generations living and raising families at the same place. I travelled to Cairo to visit families living between the graves, to get closer to the way of life and stories each of the resident have.

Biography

I was born in1985 in the historic city of Lviv, Ukraine, and grew up in Berlin, Germany. I studied Fashion Design in London. After a few years in London I returned to Germany and changed focus. I reinvented myself and ultimately re-started from scratch my Studies, and quickly found a way to Photography. On my first trip to India I discovered my love and passion for photography. India inspired my work from the first moment and still shapes my work supplementary. My work is the result of the expirience of my travels to many different countries. Each one of those places and people has contributed to define me as an artist and person. This expirences changed my hole view of life, it influented my photography from the first try and expirence. My photography is very bright and rich of colors, it is mostly about the people who has less in life. Most of my work concentrate on daily moments, situations which life creates, I try not to interfered with my presence in the moments i come along in the daily life of people. What makes my work special and distinguish me from other photographers is the fact that I´m a single Mother travelling and working together with my small child (2,5 years old). My child is involved in the hole process and also gives me a total new perspective of the people we come across and a different way to interact with the people. I try to work as a freelancer and constantly on my photography projects. I never had the chance to finish my BA of Photography because of my pregancy, but will gain it some day, in the meanwhile I shape myself as a photographer.

Story

The city of the dead is an ancient cemetery that is a residential neighborhood for the very poor people in Egypt. Cairo's alternative for those who are the poorest live in the City of the Dead slum between graveyards. A live between tombs and mausoleum structures, where people live and work amongst the dead. The settlement is far from legal, but the Egyptian government has long since given up on evicting residents. Doing so would require the unattractive proposition of moving the inhabitants to state-built apartments or forcing the creation of alternate slums. Most of the residents take care of the graves or places, next to many generations living and raising families at the same place.
I travelled to Cairo to visit families living between the graves, to get closer to the way of life and stories each of the resident have.