“Red and White Gold”2025
An artists book that reimagines the bureaucratic form of an export application to examine the politics of sun-dried tomato production in Upper Egypt. It follows how “red gold” (tomato), combined with “white gold” (salt), moves from the fields of Esna to distant markets, exposing the unequal conditions that shape its value.
The work foregrounds the extraction of labour under exploitative terms, the diversion of land from staple crops, and the unfulfilled promises of aid and modernization that deepened dependency. At once poetic and forensic, the publication reveals how export agriculture reorganizes sovereignty, transforming nourishment into commodity and local survival into global profit.
Editor: Marwa Benhalim
Editorial Design: Christian Sleiman
Resin sculpture by Yasmine El Meleegy with assistance from Mohamed Reda (Flavio)
Published by: Ta3amana Publishing Project
Produced by: Mattress Factory Contemporary Art Museum