“Anyone who wants to see the sunlight clearly needs to wipe his eyes first.”

     In the Neiberourhoud of Manshiyat Nasr in Cairo, the Coptic community of Zaraeeb has been collecting the trash of the city for decades. Even though they are marginaziled because  of their association with the trash, they have in fact managed to develop one of the world’s most efficient and highly profitable recycling system: they are an entire community of cleaners.

     eL Seed and his team lived and worked inside the community in 2016 while painting an anamorphic art piece on more than fifty facades. The art work is only readable from one vantage point on the Mokattam Mountain. The art project started as a journey to shed light on the community in Manshiyat Nasr but ended with a life lesson in reserving judgement based on unfounded preconceptions.

     The book is published as a limited edition of 500 copies. Designed by Catalina Zlotea, each slip-case is hand painted by eL Seed. Put together, all 500 books reveal the same calligraphy as it can be seen on the 50 facades in Manshiyat Nasr, Cairo. It is Printed by Fonterafica in Milan, Italy, on four different papers, including recycled paper hand-made by the people in Manashiyat Nasr.

     With a foreword by Glenn D. Lowry, the director at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), the book was launched at the museum on 4 October, in the presence of the artist and the director Glenn Lowry. 

     Perception offers a rare insight into the life of the Zaraeeb people and showcases the process of eL Seed’s most ambitious project to date. Inside the book is the artist’s story, several interviews with members of the neighbourhood and hundreds of photographs charting the extraordinary process from beginning to end.

     I am  proud that I was invived by ElSeeD to be part of this remarkable project and through my photography to contribute to the completion of the “Perception” book.