About the Project

Baad el Bahr (BEBA) is an Egyptian cultural association that aims at building bridges between cultures through the contemporary arts. We are inspired by the hope that art will become less of a luxury and more of a necessity and we wish to promote artistic creativity and innovation within the cultural sector.

Within this frame, Baad El Bahr conceived the project From Rags To Riches, which is devoted to public art created with up-cycled materials. This definition refers to works of art that have been planned and executed with the specific purpose of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outdoors and accessible to all, and that are made of unconventional materials. 

Mashrabia Gallery, curator of the From Rags to Riches project, invites you to join FRTR Platform, the second phase of the project. The FRTR Platform will start with a series of three lectures and Q&A discussions with prominent Egyptian artists and architects who will share their experience to engage audiences and foster awareness on public space, public art and use of up-cycled materials. In view of the upcoming call for proposals for the final exhibition, the FRTR Platform aims to become a dynamic and permanent tool to create encounters and share knowledge and experiences.

Programme will be as follows:

Sun 31 May: Rethinking the Public Space: Egypt as a hub
Nancy Albert and Dr. Hany El Miniawy

Sun 7 June: Egyptian Contribution in Public Art: values and challenges
Ahmed Karali & Vahan Telpian

Sun 14 June: Trash as a Source: Recycling and Upcycling
Huda Lutfi & Mohammed Abla & *Hesham Nawwar & Said Kamel

All encounters will be held at Mashrabia Gallery, 6.30pm

قاعة مشربية للفن المعاصر منسق مشروع "من المهمل الى الثمين"، تدعوكم الى المشاركة فى "منبر من المهمل الى الثمين" الجزء الثانى من المشروع، وتبدأ بسلسلة من ثلاث محاضرات وأسئلة وأجوبة ومناقشات مع الفنانين والمهندسين المعماريين المصريين البارزين الذين سوف يتبادلون الخبرات من أجل إشراك الجماهير وتعزيز الوعي حول الأماكن العامة، والفن العام وإعادة التدوير للأفضل، وفي ضوء الدعوة القادمة لتقديم المقترحات للمعرض النهائي، تهدف "منصة من المهمل الى الثمين" أن تصبح أداة حيوية ودائمة لخلق لقاءات وتبادل المعارف والخبرات


سوف يكون البرنامج كما يلي

الأحد 31 مايو: إعادة النظر في الأماكن العامة: مصر باعتبارها مركزا
نانسي ألبرت والدكتور هاني المنياوب
 
الأحد 7 يونيو: المساهمة المصرية فى الفن العام: القيم والتحديات
أحمد قرعلى و فاهان تليبيان
 
الأحد 14 يونيو: القمامة باعتبارها المصدر: إعادة التدوير وإعادة التدوير للأفضل
هدى لطفي ومحمد عبلة & هشام نوار وسعيد كامل

سوف يوضحون أعمالهم التى أنتجوها من خلال تقنيات إعادة التدوير / إعادة التدوير للأفضل في اشارة الى تجاربهم الخاصة، سيناقش المتحدثون كيف يمكن أن تتحول المواد المهملة إلى قطعة فنية قيمة

سيتم عقد كل اللقاءات في كل قاعة مشربية، 18:30

The project created by Stefania Angarano, Director of Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art will take place from 16th of December 2009 until the end of January 2010.

The idea behind this group show is how the body, which tends to be imperceptible in the local public conscience and discourse in Egypt, comes to life in Contemporary Art and expresses the human condition in contemporary times.
 
The Concept

The body is of course a very wide topic that has been explored in many international exhibitions, however, in the local Egyptian context it is rarely discussed in an open forum and is, in fact, (sub) consciously ignored. This exhibition is an exploration of the situation of the body in contemporary Egypt; as well as an exploration of how visions and perceptions of the body have evolved in the public conscience in the more recent history as well as the more distant past, to help to locate the reasons for its current situation.

As paradigms shift in contemporary Egypt society, be it through politics, religion, thought and social constructs; objects and their relationships change their meaning. The body being an object that absorbs the times as  a sponge, has, naturally, shifted its position in public and private perception repeatedly but has somehow, in that change, been unanimously granted a status of absence – silently ignored, removed from discussion, stripped of value, essentially non-existent ( or so it seems). It is the body's position as a black hole that then sets this exhibition up for surprise: to discover the innovative ways in which the artists 'find the body'. It is particularly through the field of visual art that a cavernous exploration of this topic can allusively unearth the body (in a manner that words and other mediums cannot).

The exhibition will explore interpretations of the body in many terms, for example: its perception in the context of the rapid globalization and the current local political atmosphere, as a source of self-knowledge in of itself, as a physical landscape for pleasure and pain, as a question of worth, as a site for imagination.

Artists and Structure

The exhibition will commission new productions by about 20 visual artists from Egypt. The selection includes the work of both prominent and upcoming Egyptian artists, who both already directly explore the body in their work and conceptual artists who will explore this path for this exhibition.

The participating artists are: