Constructing the present and envisioning the future in the studio arts in Cairo

Abstract

This paper explores the post-revolutionary creative production of two prominent young studio artists in Egypt: Hany Rashed (b. 1975) and Bassem Yousri (b. 1980). Both of these artists were active prior to and during the 2011 Revolution and in the immediate post-revolutionary period. This paper focuses on some of their most recent work, created under the oppressive circumstances of the el-Sisi regime. I argue that both of these artists engage a set of artistic strategies and concerns common to creative producers of their generation, including experimentation with metanarrative, the relationship between the human and the non-human, and exploration of the harsh realities of a politically oppressive urban environment. I examine Rashed’s 2018-9 project mathaf al-jips [Gypsum museum] with a view toward elucidating the way in which he thinks about the interaction between people and machines within the context of the city; and Yousri’s 2016 project Guideposts, which deals with what Yousri calls the “institutional aesthetic’ and engages a metanarrative approach that examines the relationship between artist and audience.

Keywords:

• Egypt
• creativity
• studio arts

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Examples include the artwork of Yasmine ElMeleegy, the novels and short stories of Hany Abdel Mourid and Mennat Allah Samy.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by several entities at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; the Center for 21^st Century Studies, the Letters and Science Humanities Scholarly Activities Fund, the Center for International Education and the Global Studies Program.

Notes on contributors

Caroline Seymour-Jorn

Caroline Seymour-Jorn is Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of Global Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She received her PhD in Cultural Anthropology (Middle East emphasis) from the University of Chicago. Her research combines anthropological, literary and art critical approaches to examine Arabic—and primarily Egyptian—literature and art. Her book on the 1970s generation of women writers in Egypt, entitled Cultural Criticism in Egyptian Women’s Writing: Anthropological and Literary Perspectives, appeared in the 2011 Syracuse University Press Middle East Series. Her research in Egypt has been supported by two Fulbright grants. Her new book project in Egypt, Creating Spaces of Hope: Young Artists and the New Imagination in Egypt (published in 2021 by AUC Press) explores innovative artists and writers in the Arab world’s most populous country and the way in which they engage, contest and struggle with a post-revolutionary Egyptian modernity. Seymour-Jorn is also currently working on the Muslim Milwaukee Project, a collaboration with Sunni Muslim leaders that explores the basic dimensions of the Milwaukee Muslim community, and describes how Muslims negotiate the racialized landscape of Milwaukee.