"(On) difficult terms”, 2013, Adelita Husni-Bey. Commissioned by Beirut (Cairo); work developed through a meeting with the journalists, editors and copyeditors of Mada Masr (Courtesy Mada Masr)

This event marks the third annual Guest Professorship hosted by Forensic Architecture and the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. Funded by a UKRI Frontier Research Grant.

Journalism has been a historically liberal tradition, and in times of war, trying and exposing as they are, its ideological succumbing tends to be revealed. In this public lecture, Lina Attalah (2024 Guest Professor in the Centre for Research Architecture) talks about her Cairo newsroom and her colleagues’ coverage of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the gruesome war in Sudan throughout last year. From the day to day noting of unceasing violence, she points to how this bleak moment in the region is overlapped by colonial histories, and how journalism becomes an act of navigating the afterlives of these histories. While it is not a claim for a journalism that dwells in history, this lecture wonders how we wrestle with a ‘thick present’ by moving inwardly and outwardly from it, as we look for meaning, or an impossible future of desire.

The lecture will be followed by a reception in the lobby of Professor Stuart Hall Building.

Lina Attalah is co-founder and publisher of Mada Masr, an online news organization at the forefront of investigative journalism in Egypt. She works with a team of reporters who expose sensitive stories about power in the midst a harsh crackdown on independent voices. Through her work and that of her colleagues’, Mada Masr has remained one of the few sources of independent news as many Egyptian news organizations have succumbed to government harassment and controls.

In response to their reports, Attalah and her colleagues have been routinely harassed by security forces and operate under constant threat of arrest. Attalah’s most recent arrest came on May 18, 2020, when she was picked up outside Tora Prison in Cairo while interviewing the mother of Alaa Abdel Fattah, a British-Egyptian activist who has been behind bars for 10 years. Attalah was briefly detained then released. Most recently, she has been interrogated, charged and released on bail for Mada Masr’s coverage of the genocide in Gaza. Authorities have also blocked the Mada Masr site, but it continues to publish by repeatedly creating alternate sites and circulating stories on social media platforms.

Before establishing Mada Masr, Attalah was the chief editor of the Egypt Independent, which was closed in 2013. A journalist for 20 years, she covered major stories in the news throughout the region, such as Egypt’s 2011 revolution, Syria’s revolution and war, Iran’s 2013 presidential elections and Sudan’s Darfur war in 2004.

She was one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2020 and is the recipient of the 2020 Knight International Journalism Award presented by the International Center for Journalists to honor outstanding journalism.