Crawling on the Dust

Ubuntu Art Gallery in Zamalek, Cairo, shows Crawling on the Dust, a solo exhibition of photographs by the Egyptian documentary photographer Ali Zaraay. It runs from 28 October to 21 November 2026. The works are small colour photographs. The four shown on the gallery's page measure 10 by 15, 15 by 10 and 20 by 15 centimetres.

The exhibition shares its title with a long-term project Zaraay began in 2015. Its subject is Haj Hani, a friend of the photographer, and several generations of his family, nomadic Bedouins who live in the Nile Delta. Urban expansion over the Delta's green land has blocked the family from moving freely with their animals. Hani now circles with his herd around the last green patches near a house his mother bought.

The title draws on a Bedouin saying for a life always on the move, following something as unstable as dust. In Arabic the same verb for crawling also names urban sprawl, and the project sets one kind of crawling against the other. Its subjects include the family's ties to land and animals, its ideas of road and home, and Hani's son Selim, who crossed the Mediterranean to Europe. On the gallery's page, one photograph shows a young donkey in low sun. Others show a goat held against a man's checked robe, and a goat before a cartoon-printed sheet by a tent.

From 2012 to 2016 Zaraay took photographs for several Egyptian newspapers. He completed the International Program of Documentary and Photojournalism at Hochschule Hannover in 2020, and in 2023 began a Paris residency at the Cité internationale des arts. In 2024 the project received a grant from the Arab Documentary Photography Program, and he joined World Press Photo's Joop Swart Masterclass. He was a Foam Talent runner-up in 2026 and founded the Safena 7 photography collective. The gallery opens daily except Friday, from 11am to 8pm.