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May 20, Rawabet Space, 7pm
Join us at 7 p.m. on Sunday, May 20th at Rawabet Space (Next to Townhouse Gallery) for the launch of the first print edition of Cairobserver, during which founder and editor Mohamed Elshahed will be in conversation with Yahia Shawkat, Kareem Ibrahim and Ahmad…
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“Allah Yenawwar” or “May God light your path” says the smiling police officer to me as I work on a four-meter high mural together with Ammar Abo Bakr. The mural is an image of a protester being dragged by two Military Police officers and its based on a sketch that Ammar drew just last night,…
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(by Mosa’ab Elshamy)
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Munaqabat be Mini… gone now, but the replacement is so much sweeter.
Photo: Yasmina Dethioux
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Bulaq - Among the ruins of an unfinished revolution.
On 25th January thousands of Egyptians gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, sparking what we call now the Egyptian Revolution. Only a few hundred meters far from the world-famous square, the people from popular neighborhood Bulaq joined protesters, finding in demonstrations something more than a glimmer of hope. Through their voices, ‘Bulaq’ portrays their collective struggle against eviction and social marginalization, whose destiny seems to be strictly intertwined with the hesitant fortunes of the Egyptian spring.Runtime: 25 min
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The Noise of Cairo — Heiko Lange, Mark Falk, Alex von Sturmfelder 2011
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Published on Cairoobserver:
“The towers also turn their back on Boulac, one of Cairo’s historic districts, which if it were up to investors from the Gulf and their worshipers in the Egyptian businessmen club, that neighborhood would be erased from existance. Shame, because Boulac, like almost any of Cairo’s older districts, is diverse, full of interesting domestic architecture, lively and could provide a fantastic view from the glossy new towers if the district received some attention. But who needs community, who needs history, who needs heritage… who needs Egyptians at all, lets just tear it all down. Oh, yes, we need some Egyptians to work at the hotel, wash dishes, operate lifts and clean rooms, the rest can just go somewhere else so we don’t have to look at their ugly dusty “historic” houses from our fancy sleek glass towers. “From up here those people look like ants.” Modernity has arrived Gulf style.”
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Cairoscape by eps51 Studio, 2009
” Cairoscape was an exhibition of about 20 Egyptian artists in Berlin. The main subject of the exhibition was the cityscape of Cairo which is why we decided to create a strong city-like grid. We filled the grid with different quite irregular patterns. The result is a perplexing layout which grid can be adopted to various sizes and purposes.
The design represents the cityscape of Cairo in a graphical way: a huge city which fits into a grid when being viewed from far away – the closer you get the livelier it becomes.”
