Look! On top of that taxi on the Nile corniche! It’s a man…. It’s a woman….It’s…….
Spiderman?!
This may have been what Egyptians living in Cairo exclaimed when they noticed Spiderman mingling among their fellow country men and women, engaging in activities and rituals all too familiar to the average Egyptian.
Photos of Spiderman doing things like praying at a local mosque, hanging his laundry on his balcony, riding the Cairo metro and more made international headlines last week.
The man behind the project is 20 year old photojournalist and owner of Antikka Photography, Hossam Atef, who told Ahram Online that the idea behind the stunt was to show that even a superhero like Spiderman has a tough time going about his life in Cairo, a city which ranked 122 out of 140 in the 2013 Global Livability Ranking conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
The pictures inspired wonderment as the activities being carried by the crime-fighting, human-arachnid are some of the most common and mundane known to Cairo’s 6.7 million inhabitants. One photo shows the superhero driving the glorified, motorized tricycle known as the tok-tok, while another shows him in the unpleasant – yet relatable – act of chasing down an overcrowded bus. The photos have a certain surrealism about them, with shots like the one of him hanging from his legs near the sign for a butcher shop or smoking shisha on the roof in a working class neighborhood, almost looking superimposed.
The move was especially popular with children, who chased Spiderman through their neighborhoods in euphoric frenzy.
Atef says that Antikka still has some tricks up its sleeve, asking the public to stay on the lookout for more.