Needles to Rockets
2009 | publication: 40 pages, 15 x 21 cm, limited
edition of 1000
by Ala' Younis and Motaz Attalla
This publication was developed in collaboration
with Motaz Attalla, editor of the PhotoCairo4: The Long Shortcut
Publishing House Project and was published as a limited edition
in April 2009.
In the course of preparing Nefertiti, a video and installation
by Ala’ Younis commissioned by PhotoCairo4: The Long Shortcut,
there emerged questions around the place of consumer products
in the lives of people and in society at large. The Nefertiti
sewing machine came to prominence around the mid-twentieth
century, when industrial processes themselves—and, by extension,
their products—held critical economic, social and political
significance. How do objects become iconic and acquire personas?
What relationships do people have with consumer products and
with the myths that surround them? This document, named for
Nasser’s famous slogan of industrial promise, is not an expression
of nostalgia but more an attempt at exploring these questions.
“Whatever we’ve invested in industry, we have found returns
for the industry. Of the 800 factories that were created,
some may not be fully operational today, but they certainly
give us products at present, products that allow us to not
import from abroad. If it were not for everything we have
invested in industry, I do not know what we would be doing
right now.”1
“In addition to Omo, there were deodorant sticks and birth
control pills. And then of course there was the holy trinity
that no Egyptian home could do without and that Nasser made
sure everyone could afford: the military factory-produced
oven and water heater and the Ideal brand fridge.” 2
1 Gamal Abdel Nasser, 1967
2 Sonallah Ibrahim, Wahat Diaries, Dar el Mostaqbal el Arabi
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