Public Project
An elevator workshop in the Abu AL Dardaa area of Alexandria
Summary
Makers of Egypt
These photos were taken after the Egyptian modern revolution "The 25th" January in Abo AL-Dordaa" photography, acts as a knowledgeable tool for demonstrating the Egyptian worker’s daily life and its economical struggles, especially after the revolution.
These photos were taken after the Egyptian modern revolution "The 25th" January in Abo AL-Dordaa" photography, acts as a knowledgeable tool for demonstrating the Egyptian worker’s daily life and its economical struggles, especially after the revolution.
These photos were taken after the Egyptian modern revolution "The 25th" January in Abo AL-Dordaa" photography, acts as a knowledgeable tool for demonstrating the Egyptian worker’s daily life and its economical struggles, especially after the revolution.
"Abo Al Dordaa "in Alexandria" is an old part of the city. A lot of crafts and workshops are located there and reflect the Egyptian industry through its history. Working in an elevator workshop is one of these crafts. Such a field is risky, where the labor is handling different materials using fire, welding, shaping, and manufacturing elevators which should be made with high quality to ensure customer safety. Using fire for manufacturing for a long period is very risky if precautions are not taken.
So, every labor must be trained enough to prevent themselves from any risks. Some young laborers- who left school to help their families economically - work in such workshops to gain money, and they expose themselves to such risk. Also, those young laborers prefer after a short period to leave the workshop so they can gain money faster from working in other jobs without spending a lot of time in the elevator manufacturing, putting the manager under the stress of providing efficient labor to produce high quality and safe elevators for customers.
I photographed this picture when working on "Makers of Alexandria" documenting a project of Alexandrian crafts (photographed during 2014-2015 and exhibited in 2016).
“Mohamed” is an extraordinary manager for an extraordinary workshop in Abo Al Dorada. The workshop is in the field of making elevators and Mohamed, the manager is a naval engineer who loved his father’s job and worked in it since 1990. He’s not a failure nor does he lack ambition, all he did was look at the barriers in this field as challengers. All he needs are marketing and the continuity of working hands, scarce in his field, and supervision over the materials used. Some other workshops use low-quality materials used. Some other workshops use low-quality materials and importing also influences purchases. Some may think that importing from China and Turkey is what affects production but it was Mohamed’s work injury that prevented him from working in the workshop and that he did not expect.
Those photos and others were taken during visits to the craft shop.
The photographic project includes several different photos of several photographers and a documented booklet of the Alexandrian craft, the project is a cooperation between the Viewfinder photography club and Ice Alex.
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