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English version:

buy disulfiram online canada The title of the exhibition is “turning points“. What kind of turning point do you experience right now in Egypt?

Actually it has been more than two and half years of successive turning points since the revolution. The last turning point we’re experiencing right now is the overthrowing of the government of Mohamed Morsi by the army and reliving the interim period until we can make another presidency and parliament elections.

Vattalkundu The fotos of „The Other Faces of Morsi“ (2012) are quite political and are shown for the first time in Biel. Would it have been possible for you to show them in Kairo?

I had prepared the work to be shown in Cairo during the time of Mohamed Morsi, but unfortunately I couldn’t find an appropriate chance to show it, and currently, I do not think it will have any meaningful value to be shown in Cairo after the overthrowing of Morsi.

Didn‘ t you have fear to show the fotos of Morsi in Kairo?

I do not have any fears to show the photos in Cairo. I only couldn’t find an appropriate chance to show them. As you know, the art scene in Cairo has been badly affected by the unstable situations.
Moreover, the work is related to a certain turning point that already gone. So as I mentioned, I do not think it will have any meaningful value to be shown again in Cairo specially these days.

How did you experience the year of Mohammed Mursi Isa al-Ayyat as president?

Let’s first say that the Egyptians’ ambitions were very high after the revolution and the fast escalation of events made them expect fast achievements as well. At the same time, Egypt was facing great financial problems due to losses in tourism and foreign investments. The Muslim Brotherhood joined the race for presidency (with Mohamed Morsi as their candidate) after promising the people with a great project that will solve all the problems in Egypt called “The Renaissance Project”. Morsi won the elections and people started to wait for these great achievements, but all they found was failures.

At the same time, Morsi could not reassure the average Egyptian person or commit to an unbiased political speech that enforces the people’s trust in him as a president for all Egyptians and not a president for one specific religious group.

Morsi did not succeed in anything but making more enemies from all the sectors in the country and from politicians and intellectuals who had supported him previously, which led to a cooperation between all those groups to get rid of him in the demonstrations of June the 30th.

What religion do you have and how important is it to you?

If you are suggesting that my opinion is affected with my religion, I want to mention that my opinions are strictly logical and not related to my religious background.

How did you feel the last months in Kairo ?

I feel that most of the Egyptians have decided to become more pragmatic and support the military to go back to their stable and secure lives they had before. And the current authority is trying to take back control of all the institutions of the country and enforce security to reassure the people after refusing to protect them previously.

Did you feel secure in Kairo in the last days of Morsi?

For me, my disappointment was stronger than my fear. During the clashes, I used to avoid the hostile areas, so I didn’t have big problems living my normal life, but I no longer enjoy the streets of Cairo like I did before.

What has changed in Kairo since the revoultion of 2011?

The shape of the city was already changing gradually. But after the revolution system and security have been affected very dramatically, traffic was a real problem due to street sellers who has spreaded on the streets, non-licensed cheap motorcycles driven by young boys and even tok-tok can be seen on the main streets. The slum culture was spreaded from poor slums around Cairo to the center of the city.

The freedom of opinion is officially guaranteed. Are you really free to express yourself – in private or as an artist ?

Usually I feel free to express myself and my thoughts without problems specially after the revolution, since freedom of speech has become an acquired right. I just had one accident recently regarding this exhibition when I tried to send the photos through a shipping company and the airport security refused to send the package.

I do not know if the recent changes will affect the freedom of speech, but I can see that almost all of the Egyptian media is reflecting only one point of view and they avoid presenting or inviting other people who might be having an opposing view.

In what way do you feel, that the media show only one point of view?

Most of media -and normal people- believe that military is the only hope for the country to survive, and supporting them careless of violation probabilities of human rights is an exception period to save the country from terrorism, so they become less critique to their mistakes unlike their focusing on criticizing Morsi’s behaviors in the time of his presidency.

Why couldn‘ t you come to Switzerland for the opening of your exhibition? 

I was busy at work recently, so I couldn’t  prepare for the trip. It was also hard for me to afford the flight tickets.

What do you think of the USA and the „cowboy“ Barack Obama?

Obama is like the other former presidents of USA. He acts as the guard of democracy, liberty and human rights in the whole world, but he’s actually working on protecting his country’s interests and maintaining benefits with his allies, while keeping control on the regimes of the Middle East and the energy resources in it, and also keeping high popularity for himself and his party among Americans. So it doesn’t matter if he supports a dictatorship or becomes a friend with non democratic regimes, and it also doesn’t matter if he destroys the principles of liberty and human rights, the only important thing is to keep his country safe.

The other works I’ve seen from you are not so very much political. Is it the situation that made you political as an artist, even if you are not, usually?

An artist cannot live in a separate island away from the community, and the political situations take a wide space of our daily thinking. But in general, I do not intend to push my work in a certain direction. I like working on separate small projects that I feel drawn to at the time. My interests usually change and my visual perception keeps evolving, and so does the topics that I like working on. I don’t like my work being categorized under a single category, and at the same time I don’t intend to focus on political topics. I am just concerned with the political events like any other Egyptian witnessing these unstable circumstances.

What do you want to change in your country ?

I want to fulfill the basic desires of people first. For example, if people cannot find appropriate food and homes to live in, they will never think about culture and art. And then I hope we change the personality and behaviours of people by eliminating illiterature and increasing the awareness of accepting our differences.

Interview: Clara Gauthey

Die Fototage stehen unter dem Titel «Wendepunkte». Welche Wendepunkte erleben Sie aktuell in Ägypten?

Mohamed Ezz: Eigentlich erleben wir solche Wenden seit zweieinhalb Jahren. Zuletzt, als das Militär die Regierung von Mohammed Mursi gestürzt hat, und jetzt mit der Übergangszeit, bis wir neue parlamentarische Wahlen und einen neuen Präsidenten haben.

Ihre Serie «The Other Faces of Morsi» (2012) wird erstmals in Biel gezeigt. Wäre es möglichgewesen, sie in Kairo zu zeigen?

Ich wollte das tun, als Mursi noch Präsident war. Aber leider hatte ich keine Gelegenheit dazu, und nun, nachdem er abgetreten ist, hat es für mich keinen Wert mehr, die Fotos in Kairo zu zeigen.

Hatten Sie keine Angst, dass das Folgen für Sie haben würde?

Nein. Ich habe schlicht keinen passenden Platz gefunden. Auch die Kunstzene in Kairo leidet unter der unstabilen Lage in Ägypten.

Wie haben Sie das Jahr der Präsidentschaft von Mursi erlebt?

Vielleicht muss man vorausschicken, dass die ägyptischen Ambitionen sehr hoch waren nach dem Arabischen Frühling, und die schnelle Eskalation der Ereignisse liess uns ebenso schnelle Ergebnisse erwarten. Zugleich war das Land aber mit grossen finanziellen Problemen belastet, der Tourismus brach völlig ein und ausländische Investitionen blieben aus. Die Moslembruderschaft stieg ins Rennen um die Präsidentschaft mit Kandidat Mursi, nachdem man dem Volk ein grossartiges Projekt namens «The Renaissance» angekündigt hatte, das alle Probleme lösen sollte. Mursi gewann, und die Leute warteten. Aber alles, was sie fanden, war Versagen.

Was lief schief unter Mursi?

Es gelang ihm nicht, den Ägyptern Mut zu machen oder eine vorurteilsfreie, neutrale Rede zu halten, die gezeigt hätte, dass er ein Präsident für alle und nicht nur für eine spezifische religiöse Gruppe wäre…

Welche Religion haben Sie?

Wenn Sie damit andeuten wollen, dass meine Meinung mit meiner Religion zu tun hat, möchte ich sagen, dass ich logisch und nicht aufgrund eines religiösen Backgrounds argumentiere.

Sie wollen also nicht über Ihre Religion reden…

Das Einzige, was Mursi also erreichte, war, sich überall im Land Feinde zu machen unter den Politikern und Intellektuellen, die ihn zuvor unterstützt hatten. Das führte dazu, dass sich diese Gruppen zusammenschlossen, um ihn loszuwerden im Umsturz von Ende Juni.

Wie erlebten Sie die letzten Monate in Kairo?

Ich habe den Eindruck, dass die meisten Ägypter entschieden haben, pragmatisch zu sein und das Militär zu unterstützen. Sie wollen zurück zu einer stabilen Situation, in der sie sicher sind. Und die derzeitigen Autoritäten versuchen, die Kontrolle zurückzugewinnen. Sie verstärken die Sicherheitsmassnahmen, um die Menschen zu beruhigen, nachdem sie zuvor abgelehnt haben, sie zu beschützen.

Es gab hunderte Tote, tausende Verletzte: Fühlen Sie sich sicher?

Bei mir persönlich ist die Enttäuschung stärker als die Angst. Während der Unruhen habe ich die gefährlichen Gegenden gemieden und hatte keine grossen Probleme, mein normales Leben weiterzuleben. Aber ich mag die Strassen von Kairo seither nicht mehr so wie zuvor.

Was hat sich in Kairo seit der Revolution von 2011 verändert?

Die Stadt befand sich bereits auf dem Weg der Veränderung. Aber das System und die Sicherheit veränderten sich 2011 dramatisch. Der Verkehr war ein grosses Problem, Strassenverkäufer brachten ungeprüfte oder nicht zugelassene, billige Motorräder in Umlauf, die Slum-Kultur der armen Randbezirke rund um Kairo verlagerte sich ins Stadtzentrum.

Wie gross ist die Meinungsfreiheit in Ägypten wirklich?

Normalerweise kann ich meine meine Meinung problemlos sagen, vor allem, seit das Recht darauf in der Verfassung von Ende 2012 veranktert ist. Allerdings: Als ich jetzt versucht habe, die Fotos für die Fototage nach Biel zu schicken, gab es Probleme. Ich wollte sie ganz normal mit einem Paketdienst senden, aber sie blieben bei der Flughafen-Sicherheit stecken, die ablehnte, sie zu verschicken. Schliesslich kamen die Bilder dann mithilfe der Botschaft in die Schweiz. Und: Ich weiss nicht, ob die aktuelle Entwicklung das Recht auf Meinungsfreiheit tangiert, aber ich stelle fest, dass fast alle ägyptischen Medien nur eine Sichtweise darstellen. Sie vermeiden, Leute einzuladen, die anders denken.

Welche Sicht zeigen die Medien denn?

Sie halten das Militär für die einzige Hoffnung des Landes. Also unterstützen sie es, egal ob das zur Verletzung von Menschenrechten führt, als eine Ausnahmesituation akzeptieren sie dies zum Schutz vor Terrorismus und sind unkritischer. Anders als während der Präsidentschaft

von Mursi, den die Medien offen kritisiert hatten.

Wieso sind Sie nicht persönlich zur Vernissage gekommen?

Ich war sehr beschäftigt mit meiner Arbeit, so dass ich mich nicht auf den Trip in die Schweiz vorbereiten konnte. Und es war schwierig, die Flugtickets zu bezahlen.

Was halten Sie von den USA und Barack Obama?

Obama ist wie die US-Präsidenten vor ihm. Er tritt als der Hüter der Demokratie auf, von Freiheit und Menschenrechten in der ganzen Welt. Aber er schützt vor allem die Interessen seines Landes. Während er die Regimes im Mittleren Osten zu kontrollieren versucht, will er zugleich von den Energieressourcen profitieren und seinen Beliebtheitsgrad in Amerika nicht gefährden. Es ist also nicht wichtig, ob er eine Diktatur unterstützt oder sich mit undemokratischen Regierungen anfreundet. Er will vor allem sein eigenes Land protegieren.

Ihre Arbeiten sind nicht nur politisch. Macht Sie die Situation zum politischen Künstler?

Ein Künstler kann nicht auf einer einsamen Insel abseits der Gemeinschaft leben und die politische Lage nimmt einen grossen Raum unseres Alltags ein. Aber generell will ich meine Arbeit nicht in eine bestimmte Richtung lenken.

Ich mag kleine, unterschiedliche Projekte. Meine Interessen wechseln. Meine visuelle Wahrnehmung entwickelt sich weiter, so auch meine Themen. Ich mag keine Kategorien. Ich beschäftige mich einfach wie jeder Ägypter mit der politischen Entwicklung in meinem Land, wie jeder, der die wechselhaften Umstände verfolgt.

Was möchten Sie in Ihrem Land ändern?

Zuerst würde ich die Basis-Bedürfnisse der Menschen befriedigen wollen. Die Ernährungs- und Wohnsituation verbessern zum Beispiel. Wenn die grundlegenden, wichtigsten Wünsche von Menschen nicht gestillt sind, warden sie nie anfangen, über Kultur und Kunst nachzudenken. Und ich hoffe, dass wir das Verhalten der Menschen ändern können, wenn wir den Analphabetismus eliminieren und eine Haltung entwickeln, bei der wir die unterschiedlichen Gruppen im Land akzeptieren.

From 6th to 29th September 2013
Participating with my work “The other faces of Morsi”

The Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography organizes the only annual festival of photography in Switzerland. Every year in September works of about 25 national and international photographers are exposed in the city of Biel.
The Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography is devoting its 17th edition to the “inflections” of our era, be they economic, political, social, or personal. Instability reigns in our globalized world, and economic and social models that are no longer adequate are undergoing changes.
Contemporary photographers are capturing this process in order to record the critical moment of fragility and suspension in which all the tensions of uncertainty are concentrated. They are using the creative aspect of instability to disturb our habitual codes of interpretation and employ various techniques of photography to play with our perception.
In 27 exhibits, the artists included in the 2013 edition – originating from ten countries ranging from Egypt to the United States, by way of Greece, Albania, and Switzerland – document the era of change and the moment when one state of affairs gives way to another. Most of the works are being shown for the first time in Switzerland.

Links:
Biel/Bienne festival page on Facebook
Festival’s website

Group Exhibition (13 Artists)
Curated by: Mahmoud Hamdi

Gallery Masr, 4 A Ibn zanki from hassan sabry st. zamalek-cairo, Cairo, Egypt, 11211.

Downtown Hand Colored C.Prints 15×15 cm 2013

In tribute to the history of studio photographic practice in Egypt; On Photography, at Studio Viennoise an exhibition from 14 November to 16 December 2012 in Downtown Cairo

Location: 7 Champollion Street, Downtown Cairo
Soft Opening: 14 November at 7 pm
Closing event “Finissage”: 16 December at 6 pm

Daily from 11am to 8pm, until 10pm during events
Curated by: Heba Farid, Paul Ayoub-Geday

Organized by the Photographic Memory of Egypt (PME) program, CULTNAT
Supported by the Office fédéral de la culture OFC, Musées et collections (CH), Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage, Egypt (CULTNAT) and Ismaelia Real estate.

On photography, at Studio Viennoise will be looking at selected historical examples and will touch on contemporary approaches to photographic studio practice. Tributes to well known as well as forgotten photographers will be exhibited alongside oral histories (videos) describing the practices of some of the “Last Studios” and current practitioners. The state of the profession will be discussed through the juxtaposition of these works with that of contemporary practitioners and artists. Questions of technique, style and the market will be discussed through the forms and mediums of the works exhibited, creating micro-climates and relationships between the works – archaeological and yet referencing contemporary practice. The viewer will be invited to participate in the production of photographs through the ‘Living Studio’ (at Studio Viennoise); a working photographic studio that will host invited practitioners. Each photographer/artist will re-create their own practice, deciding their own form and medium, and will produce work that will be exhibited at the end of the duration of the exhibition. The exhibition will open to the public starting Wednesday 14 November 2012 from 11am (soft opening). Various talks, film screenings, master classes and photo sessions with selected photographers/artists will take place throughout the duration of exhibition (5 weeks). A closing event followed by a reception: « Finissage » Sunday 16 December 2012 at 6pm will be held to present the production of the Living Studio.

Exhibition sections:
– Studio Viennoise waiting room and working studio (the Living Studio)
– The Last Studios: From the last great studios of Cairo and Alexandria
– Oral histories: Video installations; Testimonies of practitioners.
– Contemporary practices: How the profession reinvents itself.
Tributes:
– Tributes to once famous but forgotten photographers: Photographs from collections
– Tribute to the Camera Mayya and the unknown photographer: Photographs from collections, documentary photographs, oral history and artifacts

My work “Vinegar..soldier..coke” on the right. photo by Nadia Mounier

Cairo. Open City
New Testimonies from an Ongoing Revolution
28. 09. – 23. 12. 2012

Exhibition venue:267 . Quartiere für zeitgenössische Kunst und FotografieHamburger Straße 267, Braunschweig

Website: www.cairo-open-city.com

An exhibition by Museum for Photography Braunschweig in collaboration with Braunschweig University of Art

Cairo. Open City examines the roles that images are playing in the ongoing Egyptian revolution, from the outbreak of the Arab Spring through the present. The exhibition will include a variety of approaches to the time-based media of photography and video, from the works of photo journalists, to recordings by activists and “citizen journalists”, to documents collected by different artists.

In many ways the medium of photography has impressed upon us a quality of testimony. In the digital age and in the specific context of the Egyptian revolution new challenges and opportunities for the testimonial aspect of images are emerging: the omnipresent eye of the digital device, new distribution possibilities and alternative reporting. The exhibition will not only provide a glimpse into the freedom movements of the Arab world, it will also write a new chapter in the history of images.

If “testimony” is a central form of expression of the social transformation taking place in Egypt, then it was not primarily social networks, but the pent up desperation and courage of the people on the streets that brought about this transformation. Special attention will be paid to the genesis and intentions behind the images: Who and what is speaking from these pictures?

Cairo. Open City is an experimental exhibition in the sense that it does not represent a finished process, but rather utilizes the openness of the current political developments as a formal principle. The comprehensive exhibition has been divided into individual chapters and stations, each of which will be curated by prominent actors in the Cairo art scene, including the artists Lara Baladi and Heba Farid, the photographers Thomas Hartwell and Tarek Hefny, the activists, journalists and curators Jasmina Metwaly, Philip Rizk and Alexandra Stock, the journalist Rowan El Shimi, the bloggers Ahmad Gharbeia and Alex Nunns.

The different chapters will generate a dialogue between the images – a juxtaposition and co-existence of the greatest possible diversity of image forms and approaches. Cover images from newspapers will stand alongside photo galleries from blogs, iconic pictures alongside unknown images of people on the streets, images of martyrs alongside long-term documentary projects. As in 2011 many artists were still waiting to react to the new situation and saw their role more as street activists, a number of works are now being created that also elicit this idea of testimony, albeit with formal media that is different from the journalistic images of the events as they were happening.

On display will be photographs, videos, drawings and texts by:
Myriam Abdelaziz, Ahmed Abdel Latif, Osama Abdel Moneim, Peter van Agtmael, Alternative News Agency, Roger Anis, Kim Badawi, Mostafa Bahgat, Lara Baladi, Brigitte Bauer, Taha Belal, Eva Bertram, Sarah Carr, Denis Dailleux, Osama Dawod, Kaya Behkalam, Johanna Domke & Marouan Omara, Ahmed Easiony, Dörte Eißfeldt, Heba El Kholi, Hala Elkoussy, Mosa’ab Elshamy, Mohamed El Maymony, Mohamed El Sheshtawy, Rowan El Shimi, Mohamed Ezz, Fadi Ezzat, Heba Farid, Nermine Hammam, Thomas Hartwell, Aly Hazaa, Tarek Hefny, Eman Helal, Gigi Ibrahim, Magdi Ibrahim, Islam Kamal, Ahmed Kamel, Mahmoud Khaled, Heba Khalifa, Nadine Khan & Mariam Mekiwi, Bettina Lockemann, Alex Majoli, Jasmina Metwaly, Chris Michalski & Sebastian Stumpf, George Mohsen, Samuel Mohsen, Jehan Nasr, Mohammad Nouhan, Nasser Nouri, Alex Nunns, Maggie Osama, Susanne Pomrehn, Ivor Prickett, Jonathan Rashad, Philip Rizk, Ibrahim Saad, Randa Shaath, Ravy Shaker, Alexandra Stock, Lobna Tarek, Lilian Wagdy, Sally Zohny

Furthermore, works will be shown that were initiated as part of an encounter between young Egyptian, German and French artists. In February 2012 ten students from the Braunschweig University of Art (HBK), along with Professor Dörte Eißfeldt and Bettina Lockeman, travelled to Cairo and met there with fellow students from Egypt. A number of works came out of the digital exchange with them and with French students from the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Nîmes, and these works form the final part of the exhibition.

In Autumn 2012 an extensive catalogue in Arabic, English and German will be published by Spector Books, Leipzig, with essays by young Cairo-based authors.
Pre-orders: projekte[at]photomuseum.de

Vinegar soldier coke is featured in Camera Austria international magazine No. 118 as part of the forum section : Artists from Cairo, selected by Mia Jankowicz (Contemporary Image Collective, Kairo) and Constanze Wicke (Museum für Photographie, Braunschweig).

OPENING June 20th, 2012
8:00 PM / Gezira Arts Center, Zamalek, Cairo – Egypt

SUPERMARKET
A few kilometers on any given highway, you find road signs indicating to these large select-your-goods centers called ‘supermarkets’ or mass display markets called ‘hypermarkets’. On such vast areas, commodities impose a new social reality that reshapes and re-centers the population of the surrounding areas, creating huge going-and-returning tracks all feeding into its sphere in an amazing punctuality, as if they are inevitable practices subject to a hidden power that controls their fate. If we contemplate this phenomenon, we find that there is a hidden power which creates a confrontation and a test: People come to these places to find and select things. This is, in fact, a quest for answers to ambiguous questions; a desperate attempt at realizing the self, but the truth is human beings are the answers to the question posed by such obtuse realities.

The objects here are not symbols of thought that can only be analyzed or deconstructed into a meaning or a message. They are a group of tests, and the commodity is the one that poses the questions we are yet to answer. This is how commodities reign. There is neither information nor a piece of news, but an ongoing polling station moving in circular orbits without any possibility for escape, no chance for our eyes to be distracted.

There is a state of incessant attention. The scene is a full screen composed of advertising placards in which products play a main role and commodities form successive and equal elements; they became a nucleus around which human beings revolve. There are employees who only care about rearranging the façade and display of goods, to what a client purchases and the results are in a sort of space and self-service deepening the superficiality of the scene. It is one consistent and non-mediated range combining human beings and things, a breeding ground for manipulation. But who is manipulating whom?

Supermarket is an exhibition of contemporary visual arts, organized by Studio Khana for Cultural Development and a group of independent artists with the help of the Ministry of Culture’s Fine Arts Sector and Finding Projects Association. The concept is based on the discussion of surrounding consumeristic reality through the imitation of the supermarket, exploration of ideas related to the philosophy of consumerism and transforming them into consumeristic commodities.

Links
Reportage on egyptindependent
Exhibition video tour on Medrar.tv
Arabic catalog

I started this project in 2008 during a trip to Upper Egypt. I thought of the place as the only centralized place that brought together every type of Egyptian. People with different cultures and accents – and sometimes languages – I found them all there: the composite citizenry, as if I had traveled all over Egypt.
You can easily recognize people from other cities by their accent or their clothing, such as inhabitants of Upper Egypt who still wear the traditional galabia or soldiers going far from home for their military service. I wanted to show this tangible cosmopolitism, so I focused on the diversity of places and cultures more than on the social aspect.

I also thought about the name. The train station used to be called “Masr” station, which means “Egypt” in Arabic. People from different regions outside of Cairo used to call Cairo Egypt, so they call Cairo station Masr station. For most of them, Cairo is the most developed place in Egypt: a city where they can find good jobs, a better education and a better life. “Masr Station” came to me as an illustration of inner emigration. This is an important aspect of Egyptian social culture.

At school, people constantly asked me where I came from. I always answered Cairo, for all my relatives are from here. This was an unfamiliar reply for most of my schoolmates, who were immigrants from different regions of the country. At university, I found out that many of my friends were not living in Cairo. Many of them just came here to study and lived in student residencies or made the trip every day by train. This was a great surprise, to me train had always been synonymous with travel.

I have many memories, I remember when I traveled as a child with my grand parents to visit some of their friends. I remember, during university, when we took the train with my friends to travel to Luxor or Aswan. I remember when I grew up and took the train alone to Alexandria to get some rest away from the pressure of Cairo. I felt the urge to document people at the train station, coming every day by the thousands, leaving their families, attracted by the power of the capital city. They express intermingled feelings of tiredness,pleasure, excitement, discovery, pride, and hope.

The second surprise came after I studied the history of the railway network in Egypt. I was amazed to discover that we have the second oldest railway system in the world. Cairo’s current train station was built in 1892, then  updated in 1955. Several years ago, they decided to renovate the building and destroyed most of it. They removed all the signs of its history and replaced them with an extremely modern design that I hate. I was very disappointed, and, even though they hadn’t touched the Upper Egypt platform yet, I have decided to take photographs there and keep the richness of the place alive. There was another motivation for me to take photographs: i wanted to document this architectural heritage revealing the history of Egypt.

I hope I can make a small book out of it and I am thinking of pursuing the project. I have a dream of traveling on the top of the train and photographing very poor people who cannot even afford a ticket. They climb on the roof and spend the entire trip up there. There are many stories about it. There were famous gangs of street children traveling that way, or a criminal who used to kill children and throw them from the roof.
CONTRIBUTORS
Laurence Cornet

Link:

Mohamed Ezz ”Masr Station”

An arrangement of 13 Egyptian artists reconsidering the past 30 years, born within the late 1970s to mid 1980s, bring their criticisms towards the previous Egyptian regime, and realizing the past 30 years as a time for national reflection on what had happened to them personally, collectively, and internationally in the eyes of social politics. Alternatively the times of change being faced since the Arab Spring, due to the critical presence of the “Artist as Citizen” in the contemporary Egyptian streets, we have come to realize that the 30 preceding years needed to be erased, or in some cases revised, developed and reintroduced from the artist’s perspective. Hence, the name “Shift Delete 30,” is that act of socio-political criticism, reexamination, and deletion of 30 years of social and political anarchy.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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