How do you see your city? Rania Khallaf finds an answer in an exhibition featuring the works of local artists An exhibition opened at the Ibdaa Gallery last week featuring works by 25 artists of different generations and trends, but all with their own view of Cairo. Entering the vast area of the gallery, you feel as if you are passing through several cities in several countries, on different continents and, above all, with different tastes. The artists use a range of mediums to reflect their point of view: photography, painting, sculpture and video. The first exhibits are three photographs by Randa Shaath featuring three men, each taking a seat on a street corner. The third and most fascinating portrait is of an old man wearing a galabiya (cotton robe), apparently a porter, busy talking on his mobile phone and smiling broadly. The lanes of the city are marked in the wrinkles on his forehead. Moving on, Khaled Sorour uses acrylics to bring hot colours to two huge canvases featuring café scenes of patrons with blank eyes, perhaps reflecting unhappy times spent in the café or on the meaningless banter that people trade. In prominent painter Omar El-Nagdi's huge painting a couple sit at an empty table in an almost empty room, with an open window linking the small room to the outside world. Maha Maamoun chose the direct equivalent of the city: her photographs feature the 6th October Bridge at night with its bright lights, surrounded by huge buildings; a small boat on the Nile; and swimmers in the Mediterranean Sea, with some swimmers fully dressed. Mohamed Abla's huge work (oil on canvas, 160-240 cm), consists of 12 small portraits of people in the street surrounded by policemen. Facial portraits of some of these people are included in the larger frame, just to assure us that these people have our normal features: they are we ourselves. "The city is a history of life," Mohamed Talaat, the exhibition's curator, says. "The city is the universal picture of power, art, and poverty, although every single city is an individual case. Compared with other cities, Cairo has the privilege of being formed by different civilisations, different identities. It was equally interesting to organise this exhibition, which hosts three generations of artists and features their concepts of the city, using different artistic tools." Ahmed El-Shaer's video art, entitled La Tatanaha (Do not resign), is one of three other video art clips at the gallery. This is an art that is booming in Egypt. Although the video clip tackles the incident of Gamal Abdel-Nasser's resignation from power as president in 1967, El-Shaer, who was born in 1980, finds another social beat to the incident and the idea. "I have noticed that most people in our society have opted to be passive, have literally resigned from being active participants in society," he says. "Reading the modern history of Egypt, I found out that the most honest moment in the lives of Egyptians, and where they were actively participating, was when they showed their opposition to Abdel-Nasser's historical decision to resign." El-Shaer's two-and-a-half-minute video is divided into two screens, the top one dedicated to a specific part of Abdel-Nasser's speech and the lower screen features a scene of the Sayeda Zeinab moulid (annual feast). The moulid piece, with dervishes wearing colourful costumes, features a state of confusion; an inner choice about quitting life, even for some hours. "Although they resemble two different historical periods, both scenes have much in common," El-Shaer says. "Whether or not you agree with the truthfulness of the incident, the work evokes some kind of debate on the idea of political leadership in Third World countries, which holds an exaggerated place in people's minds." Internationally, video art is not new. It started in Europe in the 1960s. In Egypt, video art started in the late 1980s, and was then adopted by artist Mohamed Abla. Now several young artists have joined the trend. The video art market is flourishing in Europe and Dubai, where some galleries have changed their activities to host video art collections rather than typical art works. Another video art work is Tagen Bamya (Okra Tajin). This project deals with a more social concept: traditional marriage in Egyptian society and its consequences. The video shows balconies in various streets, mostly in lower-class areas. The windows are always closed, and some are hung with washing lines. The sound comes from behind closed doors. "It entails a wider space for the viewer to imagine," says Inas El-Sediq, the project designer, a graduate of the Faculty of Artistic Education in 2001. The sound depicts daily conversations between married couples in typical Egyptian families. The couples are usually talking, but neither one is listening to the other. "I am pregnant...Don't forget to fix the cooker... It's your fault, you are irresponsible... Divorce me," go the conversations between the different couples. "These couples do not share each other's interests, thoughts, ambitions, or aspirations. A large spiritual and emotional gap opens between them because of a lack of true communication, transparency, and honesty," El-Sediq adds. "When I was asked to represent my view of the city as an artist, the first thing that jumped to my mind was the ugly buildings and shantytowns spreading in Cairo today. This architectural ugliness is somehow reflected in people's attitudes. Traditional marriage is one of the ugly things that should disappear from our lives, because it makes young people lie and look ugly." Some of the most brilliant photographic works are by Sarah Mustafa. They feature 21 portraits of the photographer's own legs, in different positions; intersecting with a motorcycle, climbing the stairs, or standing over things on the ground. "The idea came to me when I was on a scholarship to Catania in Italy in 2006, when I wanted to document the journey," says Mustafa, a young lecturer at the Faculty of Applied Arts. "The town is an excellent example of diversity in space: you can find greenery, street vendors' areas, vast roads, kids' areas, etc. The relationship between me as a photographer and this kind of diversity in space is what evoked this idea. I always look on the ground to see the spot on which my legs are walking. It is a space for meditation, after all." Mustafa says "I am dreaming of having an exhibition which has the same idea, documenting different cities. I still have the same skirt and shoes in the hope that on another journey I will document a new city with the same equipment," she smiles.
