ISTANBUL - Istanbul's SALT Art Institute has, according to a recent interview with Research and Programs Director Vasif Kortun, one primary goal: "to stand for innovation and change." This was apparent last week, when the art space, which has (...)
In 2009 the HaRaKa Dance Research and Development Project, then in its fourth year, began collaborating with international artists on a series of performances and projects called Force Majeure. The program, set to debut in Egypt in 2011, featured (...)
The Townhouse gallery's Popular Show -- a collection of hundreds of works by Cairo's amateurs and professionals -- may have ended its run a few days ago, but the mark it left on the local art scene is indelible. The show was a way for curator Sarah (...)
In front of an enthusiastic crowd of hundreds at Cairo's Journalists' Syndicate Wednesday night, Ahmed Mahir, the founder of the 6 April Youth Movement, announced the group's future plans. 6 April had been engaged in internal debates over whether to (...)
Over the past weeks, a lot of Cairo's ordinary objects have been transformed by their participation in the revolution. Street signs dented with rubber bullets; stones arranged into the Egyptian flag; graffiti bidding an unapologetic farewell to (...)
Since 25 January, Egypt's many museums and archaeological sites have been the victims of looting. Yesterday, it was announced that 54 items are missing from the Egyptian Museum, contrary to the claims of former Secretary General of the Supreme (...)
Because women were left off the committee to revise the constitution, many worry that their demands will not be heard in a post-Mubarak Egypt. In order to prevent that, a number of activists--men and women--are planning a Million Woman March for 3PM (...)
In the days following the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians have begun to outline the characteristics of their ideal country. The “New Egypt” will be clean, it will lack discrimination, it will be corruption-free. The initiative is the (...)
Over the past twelve days, the demonstrations have dominated Egyptian television. But not all coverage has been equal. In fact, images of the protests broadcast on state-run television--including channels 1, 2 and Nile TV--compared to the dominant (...)
The death toll so far during Cairo's days of protests is much higher than reported in the news, according to doctors at one of Cairo's largest hospitals.
A resident doctor at the hospital who was assisting with surgeries yesterday told Al-Masry (...)
The departure of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's regime is "imminent," said prominent opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei minutes after a crowd of protesters pulled him to safety inside a mosque today while thousands protested outside in the face (...)
Yesterday's Cairo Photo Marathon seems to have gone off without a (major) hitch, but that doesn't mean that it came without challenges. Events in Tunisia and ongoing sectarian tension meant heightened security around an already heavily monitored (...)
This Saturday's Cairo Photo Marathon, a one-day photography experiment sponsored by the Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute (DEDI) and International Media Support (IMS) and coordinated by Osama Dawod, differs slightly from its predecessor. For one (...)
It's easy for a visitor to New York City to jam their itineraries with many fine things--the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Central Park. And, while all of this island life has its own worth--climbing through Lady (...)
In spite of some of its darker offerings--oil paintings of ghostly figures, photos of gutted Cairo landmarks, a large work called “Dark City”--the Futuropolis exhibition currently on display at the Saad Zaghloul Cultural Center is not, according to (...)
A lot happened on the Cairo cultural scene in 2010. Here, presented in no particular order, are some of the highlights:
A stunning new movie in wide cinematic release addresses the topic of sexual harassment in Egypt. Seeing “678” is, according to (...)
The rich ambiguity and artistry of contemporary Polish cinema--Roman Polański, Krzysztof Kieślowski—is mostly ignored in “Born of the Sea,” the Polish entry in the International Competition at this year's Cairo International Film Festival. Instead, (...)
International film festivals are somewhat about pride in your country, and no film in the festival thus far has featured its home terrain more than Switzerland's “Sauvage”, starring Jean-Luc Bideau and directed by Jean-Pierre Améris. The film shows (...)
Moroccan director Daoud Aoulad-Syad's excellent entry into the Cairo International Film Festival could be called a sequel. Syad's previous entry won Best Arab Film in the 31st year of the CIFF. "Waiting for Pasolini" told the story of group of (...)
Making a movie takes a lot of control: control of the lighting, the environment, the actors' expressions and lines, all to produce something that is ultimately judged on how well it reflects real life. This irony and the people caught in the (...)
In a recent piece on the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), journalist Sherif Awad complained that, because of low ticket sales, the festival has had to rely on private sponsors. This support, however, may force the festival to cater to the (...)
Yesterday at the beautiful marble promenade in Al Azhar park, a huge crowd gathered for the opening of the Cairo International Circus festival, a two stage, two and a half week series of performances by circus troupes from Belgium to Palestine, (...)
74-year-old Peruvian-Spanish author Mario Vargas Llosa has won the 2010 Nobel Prize in literature, the Swedish Academy announced earlier today. Llosa, a novelist, playwright, politician, and essayist, is perhaps best known for his novels, which (...)
In a new series called "World culture," the Al-Masry Al-Youm culture staff reviews the week's best, worst, and biggest in art, books, cinema, and more.
Star Wars might be coming out in 3-D, for better or for worse. Anyone interested in tracing the (...)
Egypt is home to dozens of museums, from downtown's hugely popular Egyptian Museum to the strange and too-often overlooked Agricultural Museum. Each Wednesday, as part of a new series focusing on the diverse world of Egyptian treasures new and old, (...)