Installation shots and some details of Not My Fault, 2010/2016, from the exhibition Beneath I See the Land Reel, curated by Amin Alsaden and presented earlier this month.
Not My Fault, a chain of daily errors that may distort the context or become part of it. During one month of photographing the streets of Cairo and Alexandria in 2010, I used a corrupted memory card that randomly combined stored photographs into composite images without my intervention. The resulting images emerge from a failure in the process of digital memory and storage, producing unexpected collisions between places, moments and fragments of everyday life.
Thanks to @amin.alsaden for including this work in Beneath I See the Land Reel at @ard_art_institution_ in Cairo.
The photographs were taken in 2010, and the series was first exhibited exactly 10 years ago in Less Than Important at Saad Zaghloul Culture Center, Cairo, curated by @amramer84. Images here are from that first exhibition in 2016. Lovely to see the work back in Egypt after all these years!
Update: Unfortunately, the exhibition at ARD has since closed.
#Repost @thisisnofantasy
EZZ MONEM Beneath I See the Land Reel: ARD Art Institution, Cairo 04 – 26 OCT 2026
Can photography transcend conventional documentary practices to offer alternative ways of representing our fraught relationship with land?
The exhibition explores conceptual and alternative approaches to photography, questioning how the medium can transcend traditional documentary practices to offer new ways of seeing. Curated by @amin.alsaden.
Ezz Monem, Not My Fault, 2010/2016
A chain of daily errors that may distort the context or become part of it. During one month of photographing the streets of Cairo and Alexandria in 2010, I used a corrupted memory card that randomly combined stored photographs into composite images without my intervention. The resulting images emerge from a failure in the process of digital memory and storage, producing unexpected collisions between places, moments and fragments of everyday life.
The series consists of 23 glitchy prints paired with corrupted texts – stories that began as accounts of real events but, through automated processes of image and language distortion, shifted into inconsistent forms of fiction.
Contributing this work to the @blindside_ari fundraiser, opening tonight.
And He Said: This is Power?, Do you need to eat wasabi to get emotional? #11 Archival pigment print, custom Blackwood frame, 42.5 × 31 cm (framed), 2022/2024, edition 1 of 5 + 2AP.
#Repost@blindside_ari ・・・ Join us to celebrate the tenth iteration of B–SIDE, Blindside’s annual Art Auction featuring over 175 artists!
Opening Thursday 1st October at 6pm, B–SIDE offers an opportunity for audiences to collect works from emerging and established artists while supporting Blindside, ensuring that our important artist-run initiative continues to thrive!
This year, artworks will be on display in the gallery and bidding will take place on our auction website via the link in our bio.
The B–SIDE auction will go live online and in the gallery from Thursday 1st October to Saturday 24th October!
Happy to be part of Beneath I See the Land Reel, a group exhibition curated by @amin.alsaden at @ard_art_institution_ in Cairo. Opening 4 October and continuing until 26 October 2026. Wish I was in Cairo for this one. If you’re there, come by!
#Repost@ard_art_institution_ ・・・ هل يستطيع التصوير الفوتوغرافي أن يتجاوز الممارسات التوثيقية التقليدية ليقدّم طرائق بديلة لصياغة علاقتنا المعقّدة بالأرض؟
انضمّوا إلينا يوم الأحد الموافق ٤ أكتوبر ٢٠٢٦، في تمام الساعة السابعة مساءً، لافتتاح المعرض الجماعي الجديد، الأرض من تحتي أراها تميد، بمشاركة أمينة قادوس، بولس جداي، رنا النمر، سامي إلياس، عز منعم، مها مأمون، ونبيل عزب.
بعناية أمين السادن، يأتي هذا المشروع ضمن إقامته الفنية في مؤسسة أرض للفنون، وبدعم من مجلس كندا للفنون.
*الافتتاح: الأحد ٤ اكتوبر ٢٠٢٦ الساعة ٧:٠٠ مساءً *المعرض مفتوح للجمهور حتى يوم الاثنين ٢٦ اكتوبر ٢٠٢٦ *ساعات العمل: يوميًا ما عدا الجمعة من الساعة ١١:٠٠ صباحًا حتى ٩:٠٠ مساءً
في انتظاركم!
Can photography transcend conventional documentary practices to offer alternative ways of representing our fraught relationship with land?
Join us on Sunday October 4, 2026, at 7 pm, for the opening of the new group exhibition, Beneath I see the land reel, featuring Amina Kadous, Paul Geday, rana elnemr, Samy Elias, Ezz Monem, Maha Maamoun, and Nabil Azab.
Curated by Amin Alsaden, the exhibition is presented as part of his residency at ARD Art Institution, supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.
*Opening: Sunday, October 4, 2026, at 7:00 PM. *The exhibition is open to the public till Monday, October 26, 2026. *Gallery hours: open daily except Fridays from 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM.
Waiting for you!
From a roll of B&W film shot on the last day of the exhibition.
Very grateful to @bridie.jane for visiting the exhibition and writing such a thoughtful analysis.
You can read it via the link below, also available in my bio. https://bridiefitzgerald.substack.com/p/ezz-monens-museum-of-disruptions
Last few days to see Museum of Disruptions, Part I: Archive of Thrown Objects at @connersconners. Closes this Saturday 1 August, 6pm.
#Repost@thisisnofantasy ・・・ ＥＺＺ ＭＯＮＥＭ Museum of Disruptions Part 1: Archive of Thrown Objects @connersconners 02 JUL – 01 AUG 2026 Museum of Disruptions is an ongoing project that examines acts of disruption in political and public space through the framework of an imagined museum institution. Its first part, Archive of Thrown Objects, assembles artefacts associated with historical and contemporary incidents in which politicians were targeted with ordinary objects, tracing them through historical records, news reports, and online archives. Removed from the moment of impact, the objects appear suspended between evidence, relic, historical artefact, and contemporary reconstruction. Conners Conners Fitzroy Town Hall, 201 Napier Street, Fitzroy ____________________________ #thisisnofantasy#ezzmonem@ezzmonem Images Courtesy Ezz Monem
Museum of Disruptions: Physics Lesson, single-channel video, colour, sound, CRT monitor, 12 minutes, looped. Cast: Dan Hawkins, filming assistance: Brigit Ryan, 2026. Part of my exhibition at @connersconners. The work takes the form of a staged physics lesson, presented on a CRT television. Its format references the school television lessons that used to be broadcast on national television in Egypt, which I sometimes watched as a student before exams. The script began from a school physics lesson on projectile motion, but was developed further so that parts of the monologue could also be read through the political context of public disruptions. The work was also influenced by a students film I was part of during my final year of engineering school, in which a friend mimicked the structure and delivery of those educational broadcasts. After filming, the footage was re-filmed using my old VHS camera, the same camera that was used in the making of the engineering school film in 2007.
Thanks to Dan Hawkins @troublepeachband for the seamless performance, @brigitryan for the assistance while filming, and @lisrad for lending me the teleprompter
Museum of Disruptions is an ongoing project that examines acts of disruption in political and public space through the framework of an imagined museum institution.
The gallery is open Wednesday–Saturday, 12–6pm, until 1 August. Enter via the main entrance of Fitzroy Town Hall 201 Napier St, Fitzroy, VIC
#Repost@connersconners ・・・ Continuing this week at Conners Conners, Ezz Monem | Museum of Disruptions Part 1: Archive of Thrown Objects.
Museum of Disruptions is an ongoing project that examines acts of disruption in political and public space through the framework of an imagined museum institution. Its first part, Archive of Thrown Objects, assembles artefacts associated with historical and contemporary incidents in which politicians were targeted with ordinary objects, tracing them through historical records, news reports, and online archives. Removed from the moment of impact, the objects appear suspended between evidence, relic, historical artefact, and contemporary reconstruction.
Museum of Disruptions: Berlusconi’s Two Broken Teeth and Bandage, bronze and clay, edition 1/3 + 1AP, fabrication by: @brigitryan and myself, bronze cast by @malwoodfoundry , 2026.
And details from Museum of Disruptions: Archive of Thrown Objects, souvenir statuette (Milan Cathedral), thrown at Silvio Berlusconi, Milan, Italy, 2009.
News from the ABC posted on 1 Jan 2010.
Thanks to @alaastawfik for shipping the cathedral sculpture from the Netherlands.
Part of my exhibition Museum of Disruptions: Part I – Archive of Thrown Objects at @connersconners.
Museum of Disruptions is an ongoing project that examines acts of disruption in political and public space through the framework of an imagined museum institution.
The gallery is open Wednesday–Saturday, 12–6pm, until 1 August. Enter via the main entrance of Fitzroy Town Hall 201 Napier St, Fitzroy, VIC
The work brings together artefacts associated with historical and contemporary incidents in which politicians were targeted with ordinary objects. Developed through historical records, news reports, and online archives, the project traces objects linked to acts of political disruption. Removed from the moment of impact, the objects appear suspended between evidence, relic, historical artefact, and contemporary reconstruction.
Museum of Disruptions is an ongoing project that examines acts of disruption in political and public space through the framework of an imagined museum institution.
The gallery is open Wednesday–Saturday, 12–6pm, until 1 August. Enter via the main entrance of Fitzroy Town Hall 201 Napier St, Fitzroy, VIC
Museum of Disruptions: Press Conference at the Prime Minister’s Palace, Iraq, 14 December 2008, hand-colored oil on silver gelatin print, custom Blackwood frame, 42.5 X 31 cm (framed), edition 1/3 + 1AP, 2026.
Part of my exhibition Museum of Disruptions: Part I — Archive of Thrown Objects at @connersconners
The work revisits the iconic moment of public interruption broadcast on television on 14 December 2008, when Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at US President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad. Rather than focusing on the moment of impact, the image turns toward the site of disruption: the room, its decorations, the painting on the wall, and the theatrical arrangement of power around the event. I took a still from the video, reconstructed and removed everyone from the room, rephotographed it using a film camera, prepared a negative, printed it in the darkroom, and hand-coloured the print with photo oil paint. Suspended between evidence, relic, and reconstruction, the image becomes an empty stage for a gesture that still echoes in political memory.
The gallery is open Wednesday–Saturday, 12–6pm, until 1 August. Enter via the main entrance of Fitzroy Town Hall 201 Napier St, Fitzroy, VIC
Museum of Disruptions Part I: Archive of Thrown Objects
The exhibition opens Thursday 2 July 2026, 6–8pm at Conners Conners @connersconners.
Enter via the main entrance of Fitzroy Town Hall 201 Napier St, Fitzroy, VIC
Museum of Disruptions Part I: Archive of Thrown Objects
Museum of Disruptions is an ongoing project that examines acts of disruption in political and public space through the framework of an imagined museum institution. Its first part, Archive of Thrown Objects, assembles artefacts associated with historical and contemporary incidents in which politicians were targeted with ordinary objects, tracing them through historical records, news reports, and online archives. Removed from the moment of impact, the objects appear suspended between evidence, relic, historical artefact, and contemporary reconstruction.
Thanks @brigitryan for the assistance, and to Ry and the Conners Conners volunteers for the help with installing.
#Repost@connersconners ・・・ We are pleased to invite you to the opening of Ezz Monem | Museum of Disruptions Part 1: Archive of Thrown Objects OPENING ON Thursday 2nd July 2026, 6-8PM at Conners Conners (Fitzroy Town Hall).
Museum of Disruptions is an ongoing project that examines acts of disruption in political and public space through the framework of an imagined museum institution. Its first part, Archive of Thrown Objects, assembles artefacts associated with historical and contemporary incidents in which politicians were targeted with ordinary objects, tracing them through historical records, news reports, and online archives. Removed from the moment of impact, the objects appear suspended between evidence, relic, historical artefact, and contemporary reconstruction.
Ezz Monem is an artist from Egypt who lives and works in Melbourne, with a practice spanning photography and video installations and engaging with questions of power, identity, and cultural memory. Monem completed a Master of Contemporary Art at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, in 2021, was part of Gertrude Contemporary’s Studio Program from 2022 to 2024, and has exhibited at the NGV Triennial, Gertrude Glasshouse, Blindside ARI, KINGS Artist-Run, Seventh Gallery, and the Museum of Photography in Braunschweig, Germany.
My very short film ‘And He Said: This is Power? Prodigal Son’, 2024 will be screened Next Thursday @marketgallery in Glasgow as part of ‘symptoms’, a screening of films selected by Hannan Jones and The Camelia Committee.
Next Thursday we’ll present ‘symptoms’, a screening of films selected by Hannan Jones and The Camelia Committee, who we are working with for Glasgow International 2026. @gifestival
Seven short films move across gestures, sites, materials and encounters to sit at the edges of sense-making. Connected through their refusal of spectacle and explanation, these works approach reality obliquely, through texture and sensation, as if the most truthful images are the ones that don’t ‘prove’ anything but still insist in their gesture.
~
‘And He Said: This is Power? Prodigal Son’ Ezz Monem | 2024 | 2 mins ‘Explosion, ma baby’ Pauline Curnier Jardin | 2017 | 9 mins ‘Vole, vole tristesse (Fly, Fly Sadness)’ Miryam Charles | 2015 | 6 mins ‘Avant Seriana (Before Seriana)’ Samy Benammar | 2024 | 19 mins ‘Full Out’, Sarah Ballard | 2025 | 14 mins ‘Under Discussion’, Allora & Calzadilla | 2005 | 6 mins ‘Returning a Sound’, Allora & Calzadilla | 2004 | 6 mins
~
Thursday 22nd January Doors 6:30pm Screening 7pm Free but ticketed – link in bio.
~
The screening will take place at Many Studios Event Space, 3 Ross St, Glasgow G1 5AR. The venue is wheelchair accessible and has an accessible toilet. If you have any specific access requirements you would like to make us aware of or discuss, please get in touch. Access bursaries for safe travel and childcare to support your attendance are available upon request. Contact us at market@marketgallery.org
Some recordings from the making and post-production, along with a few references behind my silly studio ghosts videos.
Processing footage from my studio as I was moving my things; body marked, sometimes traced, then removed. I re-shot the material on the same Sony mini DV handycam, this time using infrared (night) mode.
The sound sampling of a tiny snippet from one of my favourite childhood films, Sirr Taqiyyat Al-Ikhfa (The Secret of the Invisible Hat),1959. I stretched the audio, ran it through Granulator II, and played it on a lower scale.
References from Bruce Nauman’s Mapping the Studio I (Fat Chance John Cage), Georges Méliès’ silent films and The Secret of the Invisible Hat.
There’s also video I recorded around twenty years ago on the same handycam, for a book I borrowed from my Arabic teacher about séances; I was obsessed with the photographs documenting Egyptian séance sessions.
How to Disappear, a fascinating book by Haytham El Wardany.
