Xenia Nikolskaya's photographs

Al Ahram Weekly (Rania Khallaf)

Nikolskaya first came to Egypt in 2003 as part of a Russian archaeological mission to Memphis, a joint project between the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Russian Academy of Science. Three years later she returned, this time with the avowed aim of exploring the country.

"I found Egypt a very peculiar place inasmuch as so many cultures intersect yet each retains its own beauty and character," she says. "There is no place like it. The country is huge and the photographer cannot just come for a short time and take some pictures and leave. It takes much more time and effort to assimilate the traces of the past and modern civilisations that co-exist beneath one sky. I always try to capture these different spirits in a single frame."

She discovered a particular synthesis for divergent architectural styles in Cairo, and her most recent project about Egypt, Dust, focuses largely on the Serageddin villa in Garden City. . . .

Nikolskaya is planning an exhibition in Alexandria next December, together with Egyptian photographer Sherif Sonbol. The exhibition will feature images of Coptic Egypt alongside photographs taken when she was working with the conservation department of St Petersburg Academy of Art as part of the Extension of Landscape project that featured characters specific to the Russian icon tradition. But her ambition is to produce a book of photographs showcasing contemporary Egypt.

"Most of the picture books on Egypt are classical and focus only on ancient, Coptic or Islamic scenes. There is a lot to tell about Cairo as a cosmopolitan city, much more than you think."

See the above page for the full story. To see a small selection of photos by Nikolskaya click on the photograph of Nikolskaya on the above page.

In addition, she showcases some of her Dust photographs on her own website. "Dust" is the seventh folder. The site is entirely Flash driven.