The Sony Gallery for Photography at the American University in Cairo witnessed an active academic year 2001-02. Many of this year's shows featured themes of spirituality and of the various eras of Egypt's vast and rich history.

"Minya: A Cradle of Egyptian Spirituality" showed the rich spiritual heritage and great natural beauty of Minya. The great antiques of the Pharaonic, Greco-Roman, Coptic, Islamic, and modern civilizations are to be found all over Minya. The exhibition showed thirty-six color photographs of the sites and people of Minya taken by the Egyptian photographer Ahmed El-Maghraby, the special photographer of the Minister of Information. El-Maghraby was former Chief Photographer of the State Information Service and served as Special Photographer for President Mubarak in 1989 and 1990. General Hassan Hemaida, Governor of Minya, inaugurated the exhibition.

The exhibition "The Garden of Dervishes" by Shems Friedlander was part of a two-day Rumi Festival, which included poetry reading and the screening of the documentary film "Rumi, the Wings of Love," also by Friedlander. The exhibition included photographs of the whirling dervish disciples of Jalaluddin Rumi. Friedlander has been exhibiting and publishing photographs for the past thirty years. This exhibition was a follow-up to his most recent exhibit in New York.

After the recent success of the book "Be Thou There, The Holy Family's Journey in Egypt," published by the American University in Cairo Press in 2001, American photojournalist Norbert Schiller decided to exhibit a series of his photographs; some were images published in the book, and some had not been shown before. Beginning in the Sinai and traveling as far south as Assiut, the trail of the Holy Family is a fascinating route. Priests, monks, and bishops of the Coptic Church assisted Schiller while he was working on the project. His photographs showed sites such as Sakha, where the stone with Jesus' footprint (Bikha Isous) was discovered, Gabal al-Tayer, and Dayr Abu Hinnis. Schiller began his career as a photojournalist in 1984 shortly after graduating from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Egypt's history was also reflected in two other shows. The exhibition "Daughters of the Nile," featuring pictures taken from the American University in Cairo Press book "Daughters of the Nile: Photographs of Egyptian Women's Movements, 1900-1960," was the opening show for this academic year. Daughters of the Nile was a women's group founded by Duriya Shafiq in 1948. It became a political movement whose aim was to establish political equality between men and women and to eliminate female illiteracy. These thirty-six black and white pictures of Egyptian women highlighted their struggle for women's rights in social, political, cultural, and educational arenas, as well as their participation in the national movement against foreign occupation. Among the many women whose pictures appear in this exhibit were Huda Sha'rawi, Umm Kulthum, Shahinda Maqdal, Bint al-Shati', Safiya Zaghlul, and Duriya Shafiq. The pictures were compiled from personal collections of photographs, as well as reproductions from old magazines and books.

Another historical exhibition was "King Fouad: At Work and Play." This collection of black and white photographs took the viewer back to the reign of the first King of Egypt. The photographs, which include portraits, scenes of ceremonies and inaugurations, trips to foreign countries, and the king's visit to architectural sites, reflect the political as well as the social situation witnessed by modern Egypt and the magnificence of court life. The photographs come from the vast collection of Mohamed El Ghazouly, one of the court photographers at the time. This exhibition is displayed online in the Sony Virtual Gallery, which also includes other shows that have been exhibited at the Sony Gallery in recent years.

For the third time the Sony Gallery has featured the works of Lehnert and Landrock. "L'Orient," was inaugurated by H.E. Raimund Kunz, Ambassador of Switzerland. The early 20th century North African photographs reflect the particular concern of Lehnert (the actual photographer) for the desert, the oasis, and women. The oasis is particularly central since it promised spiritual as well as worldly comfort: the great awliya, the saints either buried in domed tombs but still accessible, or their living heirs who mediated between rival nomadic tribes from the neutral territory of the oases shared by all, and the Ouled Nail, the amazing geisha caste whose women danced in the cafes of Bou Saada and other Algerian oasis towns. The thirty-six black and white photographs reflect daily life scenes and landscapes of Algerian and Tunisian oases.

The final show of the year is Monda Rafla's "Legacies of Cairo: Monuments and People." In 1995 Monda Rafla, an Egyptian freelance photographer, visited Egypt for the first time after thirty years living in the United States. She began exploring and photographing parts of Cairo that, as a child growing up there, she had never seen or known. She became enchanted with the beauty of the Islamic and Coptic architecture and the simplicity and humbleness of the Cairenes. Her exhibition was opened by Dr. Mostafa El-Feki, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee for the People's Assembly. The thirty-six black and white photographs, on display through the summer, reflect the culture and tradition of Islamic Cairo, which is visible in the magnificent structures as well as in its people.

By Mayada Wahsh