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.

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

Mohamed Ezzeldin Abdelmonem from Best Shore Apps Egypt Center won the first prize of the Nov 2009 photography competition holding the theme “memories” on his inspiring picture “Leaving Home”. The same picture was named the picture of the year with a majority of 27% voting for it to gain the first place. This and other winning photos received a thorough review of the judges, and were used in the EMEA 2010 Calendar.

In recognition of Mohamed’s artistic talent, he received his photo framed accompanied with a thank you letter signed by Franc Gentili, Best Shore EMEA Apps Leader. On this occasion, I had a quick chat with Mohamed:

Congratulations on winning the first EMEA photography prize for this year. Can you tell us where was this picture taken and what is the story behind it?

The picture was taken on a train during a trip about 4 years ago. The boy was sitting in front of me and the trip was very long. I saw real expressions and feelings in his face and I wanted to transfer those feelings through the picture, which was one of my inspirations to start a personal photography project about Ramses Railway Station (the main railway station in Cairo). It is about Egyptians coming every day from all over Egypt to the capital, leaving their homes and looking for a better lifestyle in the city.

Have you taken any photography courses, and if yes how did you develop your talent?

As I believe that the talent is not always enough, knowledge is required to strengthen it. I have attended many workshops in visual arts , which started in 2003 at Cairo Opera House with “The Egyptian Salon of Photography”. It added a lot of value to me, and the organizers gave me a lot of support, and then I became a member in their community after one year of practicing and reading on different topics in photography. Afterwards, I attended workshops on various types of visual arts. Lately, I attended a workshop conducted by Spanish artists in the field of “Interactive arts”, which uses electronics and programming in controlling the image and sound. It was an exciting experiment for me to mix technology with art.

Have you participated in any photography competitions outside of HP?

I actually participated in various competitions. Recently, I won the jury’s award from the delegation of European Union in Egypt , and the Golden Award at the Emirates International Photography Competition.

Tell us more about your future photography projects.

Right now, I am participating in an exhibition in Italy “Casoria Contemporary Arts Museum” for African artists . In addition, I am preparing for a solo exhibition on the 1^st of March for a series called “Circle”. I am also planning during the next months to try working in the field of Interactive arts.

Author: Maha El-Fangary
From EMEA Today , Best Shore Application Services EMEA – news and Information website
HP-blog

participating in OLE workshop for interactive video art . it is my second experiment in the media art workshops . I liked that way of mixing art with science , it was very similar to the mix of my Engineering academic studies and my journey in visual arts .

Cairo workshop: October 16- 30, 2009
Alexandria workshop: 25 Nov – 4 Dec

Workshop for the production of ideas/projects around the concept of interactive image and sound, using a combination of free hardware and software platforms (PD and Arduino) to deepen in the use of electronics and programming.
The workshop is intended for art students, artists, designers and educators, contributing to development cultural production in local communities.

OLE
A long term project based on several workshop phases between Cairo and Alexandria, initiated with aims of developing the use of electronic interface within Art creation in Egypt.
The project phases will provide introduction to the technique, experimentation with tools, investigating ideas and concept evaluation.
For more information:
http://www.medrar.org\ole.html

Workshop is organized by:
Medrar and Hangar
http://medrar.org
http://hangar.org

Winning the Golden eye award (Street Photography) from the the 4th Emirates International Photography Competition.
the photo was taken after announcing the results of the competition , with the Italian photographer Olivio Argenti.

Exhibition date : 16th – 31st March 2009
Opening : 7:00 pm , Al-Dhafra Hall , Cultural Foundation , Abu Dahbi , Emirates .