For Ashraf Ibrahim, maps evoke visions and trigger memories, says Venus Fouad A memory map.�ê� a place where we preserve the memory of places we have seen and want to find again. A map of associations -- even if they are a fantasy -- with treasure hunts and mysterious destinations. It is in the latter sense that one should view the recent exhibition by Ashraf Ibrahim at the Arts Palace of the Opera House: "Memory Maps: 1,000 Maps And Still A Maze?" Ibrahim has taken dozens of Austrian maps and overlain them with paintings and personal impressions. What he has produced is a curious realm of dreams unrealised and vistas unexplored. The opening night began with a violin and guitar performance of Austrian and Egyptian music by the musicians Hassan Sharara and Emad Hamdi. Then followed an introduction by Rene-Paul Amry, chief of the Austrian Culture Forum in Cairo, who noted that the show was the outcome of three months of Ibrahim's residence as an artist in Vienna. Culture Minister Emad Abu Ghazi says in the introduction to the elaborate show catalogue that the artist had identified an aspect that was curiously missing in Egyptian life. "The artist offers ideas that deserve to be contemplated, through which he seeks to explain our disdain for the use of maps. Although the oldest maps in history came out of this region, we entered the modern era with a gap separating us from maps, and with a cognitive disconnect from our map-making legacy." The minister added that the exhibition, a product of cultural cooperation between Egypt and Austria, was crucial to the promotion of cultural understanding between the people of both countries. Some of the maps Ibrahim used are historic, showing, for example, the Ottoman and Austrian Empires, but the paintings are mostly eclectic. Some evoke Egyptian and Arabic decorative motifs, calligraphic as well as floral and geometric. Others are more modern, inspired mostly by the art of the collage. Ibrahim had first thought of using the maps to cover the Said Halim Palace on Champollion Street. This was before the renovation of the palace began in recent months. In the Arts Palace, Ibrahim's maps have transformed the corridors of the space into a bustling scene of jumbled memories. What Ibrahim is trying to show is that everything can be used as canvas, including city maps, menus, train tickets, customs clearances, and even passports. The cascade of visions that emanate from his work is energetic just as it is bewildering, mixing organic motifs with historic allusions and geometric perspectives. Speaking at the opening night, Ibrahim explained his project thus: "Life is a huge map, but also an immense visual text, one that brings together an infinity of shapes and memories." When he is handed a map of Vienna, what he sees is more than the streets of this foreign city. He recalls the memories of his time in that city, relives its melange of colours and its shapes, and the overwhelming force it contains. When he puts his brush to a map of Vienna, Ibrahim turns into something else. He claims it as a prize and pays homage to it as an edifice, infusing it with his own soul. Egypt and Austria share a historic border, Ibrahim says, since Egypt was once part of the Ottoman Empire, a neighbour and rival of the Austrian Empire. He focuses on Vienna, using its maps as a guide for memory, turning it into a background for his dreams and a canvas for eclectic visions. He is inspired by the clarity of maps, by the clear colours of roads, parks, and railways. In his hands, Vienna becomes a symbol for the intricate reality of everyday life: inspiring, confusing, attractive, and above all enchanting. The opening was attended by Thomas Nader, the Austrian ambassador to Cairo; Abdel-Qawi Khalifa, governor of Cairo; Shaker Abdel-Hamid, secretary-general of the Supreme Council for Culture and Mostafa El-Fiqi; chairman of the Egyptian-Austrian Friendship Society.
