 |
|||||||
A contemporary art project taking place on the streets of Downtown Cairo 5 – 15 November 2007 ABOUT THE PROJECT In the megalopolis that is present-day Cairo, public space is a scarce resource. TALES AROUND THE PAVEMENT is a contemporary art project exploring Downtown Cairo’s existing public spaces where residents are allowed to gather and interact as a site in which the complex relationship between the city’s dwellers and its various governing bodies is constantly negotiated and redefined. Seven artists, designers and architects are commissioned to produce new projects through which they subtly disrupt the urban landscape by reinventing some of the guerrilla-style tactics and survival strategies employed by city dwellers on a daily basis in the public sphere.Curated by Aleya Hamza and Edit MolnárPARTICIPATING ARTISTS Marwan Fayed | Eklego Design | Mohamed Allam | Malak Helmy | Mahmoud Hamdy | Kareem Lotfy | George Azmy PROJECTS Malak Helmy Malak Helmy’s Koshk project also managed to elicit interesting responses all around. Helmy’s Koshk is a work-in-progress: a kiosk transformed into an interactive art project that is composed of a series of artists collaborations that build upon one another with “How to make your body overnight” as its first manifestation. She chose a small abandoned kiosk on the beaten track. This kiosk is strategically located on the mouth of a tunnel-like passageway that connects two major Downtown streets. Overnight, she transformed this invisible space into a magical wishing booth. Over the shiny translucent paper she used to cover almost the entire structure, Helmy placed a sign above a slit inviting people to place their wish and come back in the following days to see what has become of it. Everyday, she would collect proclaimed desires and fantasies of the city that she then, along with a group of fellow artists, turn into images and post on the walls of the kiosk. Over the span of the week or so during which this project ran, people went from being intrigued to being offended and everything in between. Her stories are many, and she has included some of her encounters in a text that we have also included in the publication.  Malak Helmy \ Mahmoud Hamdy n Transmission, Mahmoud Hamdy’s point of departure was also a very specific, in this case male, urban particularity. Often in Cairo, groups of guys would watch entire football games in shop window displays of stores selling audio-visual equipment. Hamdy systematically approached a number of shop owners for permission to set up a fake living room on the pavement facing the TV monitor displays. Despite the fact that this practice is generally condoned, to authorise it is a completely different ball game, and so Hamdy’s quest for permission was not met with immense enthusiasm. Most likely it encroached upon the ill-defined border of the grey zone also known as Emergency Law, something about restrictions to freedom of assembly in public spaces. Since the final of the African Football League between Egypt’s Ahly playing against their Tunisian archrival, Al Negm El Sahili (Coastal Star), was at stake in his project, at this point it was also a question of national pride. As he set up his rented urban middle class living room down to gilted couches and fake Persian carpets on the pavement facing CiC in Mounira, Hamdy’s endeavour was once again met with sour resistance, this time from the owner of the building itself, who felt that it was grossly appropriate for the family to allow the neighbour hood to congregate on the pavement directly touching their property, a lovely 1920’s two-story villa. Any other pavement but ‘his’ will do. And so, finally Hamdy managed to recreate his al fresco living room ten meters away where majority of the guys from the street watched Ahly lose over peanuts and pumpkin seed.  Mahmoud Hamdy Marwan Fayed Prototype for an architectural public intervention In his architecturally-conceived project, Padding the City: Authorization of an Urban Complex, Marwan Fayed re-cycled commonplace industrial material to build a prototype for a bleacher style street seating arrangement. He used discarded plastic coca cola crates as building blocks and inner tubes as cushions. Fayed installed the work opposite to a free-standing kiosk located on Champollion Street, a busy street in the mechanics district of Cairo. His piece was regarded with both suspicion and curiosity by passers by and in less than two days it was dismantled and used as individual seats by the custodian of the kiosk. The impulse for Fayed’s application was driven by a utopic desire to counter balance the unwelcoming physical harshness of the city. With his generous, almost protective gesture, Fayed adds a cushioned layer to its hard edges. But his approach is built upon a typical Cairo practise of multi-functional use of any and every material where a man’s trash is another’s treasure.  Marwan Fayed
A mobile audio installation Mohamed Allam’s mobile sound piece is entitled “A Very Private Conversation”. It is based on observation of male-female dynamics, youth culture and the Nile Corniche. Inspired by the levels of intimacy and public display of affection (highly modest) between young couples populating the banks of the Nile, Allam’s audio installation presents a recording of a fictional dialogue in an imaginary relationship between a young man and his fiancée. Two actors, an amateur and a professional, were given guidelines from Allam for the conversation, but left to improvise accordingly. As an aural manifestation of this recognizable Cairene image, their intimate dialogue was emitted in various locations on the Corniche becoming organically and immediatly absorbed into the overall cacophony of Downtown. At the same time if one got closer to the the source of the sound, the conversation carved out the siluette of the loving couple and one could listen to a secret conversation that would not have been accessible otherwise. A transcript of a section of their dialogue is included in this publication , revealing many of the peculiar topics and dynamics that dominate gender relations within Egyptian society  Mohamed Allam Eklego Design Eklego Design also played on the idea of public furniture. But while Fayed’s approach to material and design had metaphorical undertones, this design group came up with numerous possibilities for a brand new product. Their concept was to create a prototype for an inexpensive chair that has the potential for mass production and that is specifically designed for individual use in public space in Cairo. They sketched out three different designs but due to financial constraints produced only one of the three ideas. Made out of thin aluminium tubes and durable plain canvas material, Dwelling Station is a portable chair that can be dismantled and carried in a bag. It is hook-able with long metal chains onto the railings separating pavements from the banks of the Nile. The life span of the actual prototype is unknown since it disappeared on the day after which it was installed in a lively area on the East bank of the Nile, despite the fact that it was not necessarily visible from the street.  Eklego
Kareem Lotfy  Kareem Lotfy George Azmy  George Azmy TALES AROUND THE PAVEMENT (CAIRO UNCLASSIFIED) is a project commissioned by MEETING POINTS 5 (MP5), a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts festival organized by the YOUNG ARAB THEATRE FUND taking place in the Middle East and North Africa in November 2007. ALL IMAGES BY TAREK HEFNY. |
|||||||
hamzamolnar curatorial collective 