All images © Mohamed Hassan
Winner of the Star Photobook Dummy Award 2024, Our Hidden Room portrays a complex yet loving father-son relationship
At once raw and tender, Mohamed Hassan’s Our Hidden Room unfolds as an intimate dialogue between father and son, charting a relationship marked by love, pain, and unspoken truths. Structured across six chapters, Hassan traces his father’s extraordinary journey – from a childhood in an Alexandria orphanage to service in the Egyptian Army, where the discovery of photography offered both artistic freedom and emotional refuge. Yet this passion was shadowed by a lifelong struggle with mental illness, a battle that shaped not only his father’s life but also the contours of their relationship.
Through words and images, Hassan bears witness to these intertwined stories, confronting the weight of stigma, the endurance of love, and the redemptive force of art. “This is about my father. This is about me. This is about our hidden room,” says Hassan.
Explore Hassan’s book below.
