A subtle creator of images and archivist of the present, in her photos and videos Maha Maamoun draws on an array of scenes from daily life and pop culture in Cairo. Parallel to her artistic work, she also maintains a strong presence in Egyptian cultural life as a curator and independent publisher.

Born in the United States, M. Maamoun grew up in Cairo, Egypt, where she still lives. After studying economics and computer science at the American University in Cairo, where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1993, in 2001 she went on to obtain a master’s in Middle Eastern history from the Department of Arabic Studies at the same university.

Her central interest is in images, both still and moving. In the early 2000s she began studying the narrative told by representations of Egypt in popular culture, producing the photo series Cairoscapes (2003). Postcards, travel journals and cinema formed the basis of her four-part series Domestic Tourism I (2005), which was followed by the film Domestic Tourism II (2009). These works demonstrate her attentiveness to tonal shifts, revealing a relationship to her environment that is at once intimate and distant. As she navigates between lived experience and a more removed gaze, the various profiles adopted by Egypt in different historical periods and spaces, real or imagined, bump up against one another. Elsewhere, the modern, touristic Egypt may also be observed, frozen in time: in Night Visitor: The Night of Counting the Years (2011), M. Maamoun edits together found footage from the Egyptian revolution; in 2026 (2010) she shifts her focus to science fiction, anticipating another uprising.

As well as her experimental image-making, M. Maamoun is an active member of the Egyptian art world. She has curated numerous exhibitions and been involved in organising projects in the Middle East and Europe. Notably, she is a founding member of the Contemporary Image Collective (CiC), an independent, not-for-profit space for art and culture established in Cairo in 2004. In 2012 M. Maamoun and Jordanian artist Ala Younis (b. 1974) founded Kayfa ta, meaning “how to” in Arabic. Inspired by popular how-to manuals, the publishing initiative produces artistic/practical handbooks in both Arabic and English, mixing techniques and ideas with the aim of dissolving practical and professional boundaries between what is and isn’t considered artistic, as well as opening up a space for experimental thinking and writing.

M. Maamoun’s work has been the subject of numerous international exhibitions and screenings, and is held in several important private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), the Deutsche Bank (Frankfurt am Main), MK&G Museum (Hamburg), the Bonnefantenmuseum (Maastricht), the MuHKA (Antwerp), the Sharjah Art Foundation and the Barjeel Art Foundation (Sharjah), and the FRAC Poitou-Charentes (Angoulême).