Hala El Koussy wins Abraaj Capital Art Prize

Hala El Koussy, a photographer originally from Cairo, has been named the winner of the 2009 Abraaj Capital Art prize, along with Jelle Bouwhuis, director of the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum's Bureau Amsterdam.   El Koussy, who has been working in the Netherlands for the past few years, is known for  photographs that focus on Cairo culture, and on the tensions between reality and the photographic scene (In one project, for instance, she created a photo album of an Egyptian "family" that did not really exist; the portraits in the photos were of people who had no real relationship with one another.)    The $200,000 prize, created by a private-equity firm based in Dubai, will fund an upcoming project to be produced for exhibition at the 2010 Art Dubai.