About the Gallery

The Sony Gallery for Photography, inaugurated in 1991 remains the only gallery in Egypt dedicated exclusively to still photography in general and to photojournalism in particular. Directed by Shems Friedlander and curated by Adham Center graduate Noura Bahgat, the gallery features four exhibitions per academic year.

Shems Friedlander is an award-winning graphic designer, an accomplished photographer, painter, poet, filmmaker and author on Rumi and Sufism. His dervish photographs, which are in several private collections, have become documentary classics and have been exhibited in New York, London, Cairo and Alexandria. Friedlander’s documentary films, “Rumi, The Wings of Love”, and “The Circles of Remembrance”, have been screened in film festivals worldwide. He has written nine books. Friedlander teaches graphic communications and drawing and painting at The American University in Cairo.

Noura Bahgat is a graduate of the American University in Cairo. In 1995, she started working as the Curator of the Sony Gallery for Photography at the Adham Center and joined the MA program in Television Journalism which she completed in 1996. Her BA was in Islamic Art and Architecture.