Egyptian artist with special needs challenges Down syndrome with photography

CAIRO – 13 December 2020: Hassan el-Akhras is a 25-year-old Egyptian artist with special needs. He suffers from Down Syndrome, but he did not succumb to the disease, nor did he lean into despair.

He resorted to art, inspired by his ability to face the world, and found his way in the art of photography.

Hassan el-Akhras studied at UCLA Pathway in Los Angeles, California, USA. He continued his defiance of circumstances as he worked on holding his first art exhibitions entitled "Remembrance" as a tribute to the spirit of his late father, Amr el-Akhras, who helped him before his passing to bring the exhibition to light.

In Cairo, over the course of two days, the Art Talks gallery in Zamalek witnessed the first photography by artist and photographer Hassan el-Akhras, entitled "Remembrance", which includes about 35 graphic paintings, embodying several places in Cairo from the Islamic Cairo region, especially Al-Moez Street, the Al-Gamaliya district, the Nile Corniche, and stunning views of the eternal Nile River.

In his new exhibition, the artist Hassan el-Akhras was inspired by historical Cairo, looking for his pictures as if they document the history and a great civilization that testifies to the ancient city of a thousand minarets, and from the pages of the waters of the Nile River are clips that tell about the splendor of this land, as if he was inspired by the god of goodness and giving among the ancient Egyptians as a base for his first exhibition.

El-Akhras said that his exhibition includes 35 photographs, which took about two years to complete, indicating that he was influenced by the tourist places in the Islamic Cairo region, and the charming places overlooking the Nile River. That was behind his desire to photograph those places and then come out with this exhibition.