We have been invited on the 24th of September to attend the Sharjah festival for arab photo. I did not know that we were 3 Egyptians travelling to the Emirates until the night before.
I was very happy to know that Kareem Nabile -my old friend- is coming with us, and Mohamed Hossam who works as a photojournalist for ElMasry ElYoum newspaper. On the day of the flight, I found out that Mr.Galal ElMessary is coming with as a member in the arab photographers union.
We flied to Dubai airport then moved to sharjah and stayed in a hotel there. The day after, we woke up very early and went to the American University of Sharjah to attend the ceremony and the exhibition there. The univeristy is very impressing, great islamic architecture with large green areas, but the weather stops you from enjoying these great areas, we entered the theatre and waited for Sheikh Sultan Al Qassimi, Ruler of Sharjah to start the ceremony and awards announcing. We were astonished to know that egypt won 5 awards out of the 12 awards in the competition which made it the top winning country.

I won the Golden award in the category “Life in the City”, Mohamed Hossam won 2 Silver awards, one in the Book category and the other in “Life in the City” category, Kareem won the Bronze award in the same category. I was so happy with the award model of “Camera Obscura”, it has a lens and glass plate to see the real reversed image photo on it.
We stayed two more days and went back to Cairo.

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Master of Fine Arts in Writing Program, in conjunction with the DEAR NAVIGATOR editorial staff, announce the fourth installment of DEAR NAVIGATOR, an electronic magazine of contemporary art + writing, featuring emerging + established artists from around the globe.
DEAR NAVIGATOR creates a forum for innovative writing that works as art object, critical opus, interdisciplinary essay, poetic form, meta-text, and philosophical offering. Housed by the MFA Writing Program at SAIC, DEAR NAVIGATOR appeared quarterly and electronically, published a handful of established and up-and-coming writers per issue, and shepherded associated projects, including curated reading and performance series. “Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be.”
—Virginia Woolf, 28 March 1941

Issue 4: The Greatest Possible Happiness features work from:
Amado Alfadni – David Antin – Mohamed Ezz – Robert Fitterman – Kristen Gallagher – Amelia Gray – Amanda Kerdahi – Jasmina Metwaly – Carlos Soto Román with Vanessa Place – Maged Zaher

Links:
Dear Navigator: http://www.saic.edu/dearnavigator/

Projection of “The Picture Story” workshop results
by John Perkins
Photographer John Perkins lead a workshop with the theme of “The Picture Story,” where participants look at presenting their chosen photo projects in magazines and galleries. Each participant will try to find a unique photographic voice, and will be encouraged to follow a thread to its conclusion.
The workshop will conclude with a projection of participants work on 20
June 2011 at 2:00 pm in Rawabet Theatre.

Links:
Facebook event
“The Picture Story” magazine

Darb 1718 is inviting you to the opening of ” Text ” Exhibition on 6th of June 2011 7:30 pm.
“Text” Contemporary Conceptual Art Exhibition:
Contemporary Conceptual art exhibit stresses the importance of text through the work of contemporary conceptual art, text is the conceptual part of the art projects or it is conceptual definition of it .
This underlines the importance of the text in the art works as a bridge between the artist and the conceptual work of art and the public.

Links:
Facebook event

Participating in Workshop 4: The Wrong Picture with Osama Dawod.
Talking about photos is sometimes much more valuable than the photos themselves.

The Wrong Picture
In a time when many people take pictures, many do it as an automatic practice, and few do so with much conscious reflection. That has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the picture, or whether it is a good picture or not.
What this workshop is really about is to answer this simple question: Does what we actually like to photograph reflect what we really are good at photographing? The workshop is designed to explore our watching and observational abilities. It stresses that “looking” is more important in photography than “clicking”. The participants will discuss and identify their “normal” habits and will begin to go beyond this, to discover other possibilities of what might be more interesting. There is no “Wrong Picture”.

Contemporary Image Collective (CIC)
Alternative News Agency
Launch and Public Discussion

Date: 7pm, 7th December 2010
Address: 4th Floor, 22 Abdel Khaleq Tharwat Street, Downtown Cairo

CIC launches the ANA publication, containing eight brand new photo stories about the political, social and cultural life of Egypt today. The full-colour bilingual publication will be available for free at the launch. There will also be a short public discussion on the project and its key questions between the participants, a diverse group of photojournalists, artists, citizen journalists, and other practitioners.

The Alternative News Agency (ANA) is a pilot project that over the past four months has brought these people together to workshop ideas, receive training, and share skills about the political and social roles of the photographic image. As well as providing basic photojournalism training, the sessions involved art historical, critical and legal elements aimed at producing a lateral discussion that drew from the experiences of all the participants. Taking the diversity of approaches and attitudes as a strength, the ANA aims to create a space in which the photojournalistic, artistic, and online reportage approaches can broaden and challenge each other. From here, each participant researched and developed individual photo stories that speak broadly about the country in the weeks leading up to the Parliamentary Elections.

Photographers Karim Mansour and Shady ElMashak each develop portraits based on the key moment when political motivations register on the faces of the politicians and ordinary people they met and interviewed. Both architect Shaimaa Ashour and blogger Abdulrahman Mansour explore the specific politics of spaces such as a public park in Maadi, Cairo, and a Nile Delta village respectively. Photojournalist Amira Mortada follows the week of a female candidate attempting to register as an independent in Alexandria. Blogger Moustafa El Shandawely, artist Mohamed Ezz Eldin, and photojournalist Mohamed Eid were each interested in the omnipresence and iconography of election posters and advertising tactics across Cairo.
This one-off publication is available free of charge. For updates and news, check the blog:
alternativephotoagency.wordpress.com
*The ANA project is sponsored by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Cairo.

Links:

Facebook Event
The publication

We are honored to invite you to the documentary photography exhibition : “Clowns Without Borders”
the opening will be on the 4th of November 2010 , 6:00 p.m.
Qaitbay Citadel in Alexandria as a part of “Farah el Bahr” Festival.

for the photographers :
Olivier Ouadah
Mohamed Ezz

Borned from a meeting of French and Egyptian artists involved with El Nahda and Clowns Without Borders – France associations, project Ibtisam Al Jisr bin Firansa wa Misr is an art project with a social perspective.
The strength of this cooperation was an opportunity to share experiences, create synergies and new activities.
Shows were created and performed, artistic activities were organized for children who have little or no access to the magic of the show.
In Cairo, Alexandria, Damietta, in partnership with NGOs which support children and communities, artists have brought laughter, dreams and poetry.
Since the project began in June 2009:
– 4 artistic sessions involving 26 artists (15 artists and 11 artists Egyptian French, 11 women and 15 men)
– 4 shows have been created
– 67 performances were organized for more than 10 000 children
– 36 workshop sessions for more than 120 children
– 35 specific interventions for following outreach program called maraudes (mobile clinics) have been organized for street children
– More than 10 partner associations including Samu Social International, Asmae, Face, Caritas, Terre des Hommes have been involved.

The exhibition is the work of two photographers: Mohamed Ezz and Olivier Ouadah who follolled two artistic sessions in April and July 2010.
This ambitious project would not have been possible without the financial support of the Anna Lindh Foundation Air France, AFAA, The city of Marseille, Adami, the Ministry of Culture and Communication – France, High Commissioner for Youth – France and all private donors of Clowns Without Borders.
Thank you to all persons and associations who have made this project possible.

Links:

Facebook event

Participating in the APA workshop from 3-14 October 2010.

CIC Alternative Photo Agency is a pilot project from Contemporary Image Collective, bringing together emerging artists, photojournalists and citizen journalists to receive training, to workshop ideas, and share skills about the political and social role of the image in their practices. Over ten days they will plan photo stories responding to social and political issues in Egypt today, each aiming to create two photostories for publication by CIC.

Links:

http://ciccairo.com
http://alternativephotoagency.wordpress.com

Opening on the 8th of March 2010, 8:00 pm at El-Balad art gallery, 31 Mohamed Mahmoud street in front of the AUC main Building, Downtown, Cairo.
Daily from 10:00am to 11:00pm
Phone: + 202 27922768