Summer fashion under the eyes of Madame Figaro-Arles photography prize winner Amina Cadus

Amina Kadus is punctual. He made us an appointment practically on Sunday morning at 10 am and at the agreed time he appears in front of his screen. Her face is surrounded by a pale pink veil, she wears a broad smile. On the wall, without a photograph, she sits in the center of a triptych of floral pendants. Born in 1991, the photographer already has a well-developed discourse about her practice and her work. With impeccable English, the legacy of his years of study—undergrad at the American High School in Cairo, studying at Central Saint Martins in London, then at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston—he dedicates himself to the Cairo interview. However, his artistic journey does not begin in the capital of Egypt, but in the city of El-Mahalla El-Kubra in the center of the Nile Delta, where his family is from. In 2018, when Amina’s grandmother has just disappeared and everyone is busy emptying the family home, the photographer uncovers a secret. his grandfather spent part of his life recording his daily life without speaking. His collections were in plain sight the tip of a larger iceberg; a family memory frozen in a photo.

In the video, no Madame Figarophotographer Amina Kadus made a fashion shoot

Cotton weave connects personal history and story

Indirectly, in his paintings, we see all the political upheavals of the country, but also the changes in the landscape that accompany the stages of economic development. First, the cotton industry. This is the discovery of Amina, who embarks on a big project, the White Gold Project (“White Gold”). He combines family archives and photographs he takes around cotton and its culture, and even goes so far as to create cotton paper with his own hands onto which he transfers his images. White Gold, which just won an award at the Kranj Foto Fest in Slovenia, will be the subject of a solo exhibition. The artist continues this project, focusing on the history of cotton in Alexandria, from where he traveled to Liverpool and Manchester. This latest work will be exhibited at the Photography Biennale in Thessaloniki, Greece in October.

His relationship with photography is passionate, but not exclusive. And if he devotes his artistic practice to it today, he does not refrain from returning to painting one day. “Each idea comes with its own medium of expression. Photography is the stage of my creative journey.” In Cairo, her hometown, the female photographer is accepted “like a girl” by the residents, who allow her to document and photograph their intimacy. An intimacy that is envied by her male colleagues, who often ask her to accompany them. For her first fashion shoot, shot for Madame Figaro in the green surroundings of Le Barn Hotel in Yvelines, she chose to invite color and substance into her shots, faithful to painting, her first love. Thanks to the filters applied directly in front of the lens, it gets a cotton vibe with vintage accents. A pictorial aesthetic where fabric still plays a central role.

Madame Figaro Photography Award x Les Rencontres d’Arles