Overlooking the Nile, the 25 artists taking part in the fourth Luxor International Painting Symposium — which this year took “Africa, Expressions of Identity” as its theme — were taken on excursions to nearby islands and ancient ruins and used the trips as a time to bond and exchange more than just artistic skills. In lectures and presentations held on the sidelines of the symposium, they discussed topics ranging from city planning and capitalism to euro-centricity and the need to resist the temptations and exigencies of globalization.

Never before have so many attempts at blending African art with Egyptian motifs been conducted on such a scale. Artists offered their own interpretations of Egyptian culture, blending the old with the new, the folkloric with the historical, and infusing it all with the scents and texture of their own countries.

The symposium was a rare opportunity for interaction among African artists, who are usually more drawn to the West than to each other. They share similar concerns, similar economic and social worries, and much of the attitude to life and society. In this sense the symposium was not just about art but about artists finding their way together and exploring what they had in common.

Al Ahram

My homeland, my homeland, my hallowed land,
Only to you is my due hearty love at command.
My homeland, my homeland, my hallowed land,
Only to you is my due hearty love at command.
Mother of the great ancient land,
My sacred wish and holy demand,
All should love, awe and cherish thee,
Gracious is thy Nile to humanity,
No evil hand can harm or do you wrong,
So long as your free sons are strong.
My homeland, my homeland, my hallowed land,
Only to you is my due hearty love at command.

Following years of neglect, the Museum of Islamic Art has undergone comprehensive rehabilitation not only of its building and interior design, but also of its exhibition design and displays.

The MIA was first opened in 1881 with an initial display of 111 objects gathered from mosques and mausoleums across Egypt. Since then the museum has become the main abode for the national collection of Islamic art, which had reached that huge number of 100,000 objects by 2003.

That was when the Ministry of Culture launched its comprehensive restoration project for the museum. The masterplan for the renovation and the new exhibition design was drawn up by French designer and museographer Adrien Gardère in cooperation with the Islamic Department of the Louvre Museum in Paris, which has advised on the reorganisation of the museum’s collections.

The MIA is divided into two large wings; the first is devoted to the chronological exhibition of Islamic artefacts taken in the main from monuments in historic Cairo. This wing follows a broadly chronological approach in its presentation of the collection, progressing through the Umayyad, Abbasid, Tulunid, Fatimid, Ayubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods while also including various thematic displays.

The second wing displays materials from other countries in the Islamic world. These include calligraphy; manuscripts; ceramics; mosaics; textiles; gravestones; mashrabiya (latticed woodwork); wooden objects; metal and glass vessels; incense burners and caskets; pottery; metalwork and glass lamps dating from various periods in Islamic history. These objects are displayed according to both chronology and theme, provenance and material.

The renovated museum has state-of-the-art security and lighting systems, a fully-equipped restoration laboratory, a children’s museum and a library.

Excerpted from an article Nevine El-Aref for Al-Ahram

Last Wednesday, ancient met modern at El Sawy Culture Wheel when the band Welad el-Faraana (Children of the Pharaohs), wearing jeans and t-shirts and playing pharaonic and Nubian instruments, resurrected the music of their Egyptian ancestors.

Welad al-Faraana signals a trend in contemporary Egyptian music, which has steadily begun welcoming pharaonic and Nubian music back into the scene. Currently, the National Project for Reviving Ancient Egyptian Music–headed by Khairi el-Malt, a music archeology researcher and the band leader–seeks to unearth ancient Egyptian music, revive its sound, and spread it all over the world via university courses and the manufacturing of instruments in the ancient Egyptian styles. That night at El Sawy Culture Wheel, a flier advertising a Diploma of Ancient Egyptian Music was being circulated through the audience.

On that summer night at El Sawy Culture Wheel, many melodies–tunes rising and falling as softly as calm breathing–transported listeners to ancient Egypt. The instruments, in earth colors and primitive designs, looked better-suited for a museum than the El Sakia stage, which normally hosts electric guitars and hip-hop. But the two worlds were connected that night. The pear lute, sleek wood with threads of fabric artfully dangling down from its side, showed itself to be the ancestor of the electric guitar, and the deep, rhythmic echoes reverberating from the Nubian doffs (drums) were reminiscent of modern hip-hop beats.

Excerpted from an article by Sara Elkamel for ALMASRYALYOUM

The bustling, frantic streets of Turkey and Egypt’s towns and cities are home to hundreds of street hawkers who excel in delivering mouth-watering dishes of their national cuisines for a fraction of restaurant prices. If you’re holidaying in Turkey or Egypt this summer it’s well worth exploring your gastronomic options outside of that tried and tested hotel buffet. Eating out on the streets means you can immerse yourself in daily life; interact with friendly locals and try some delicacies you’d never try back home.

After February’s vote by the State Council for Administrative Judges against female judges, the council’s vice president was quoted by Egyptian media as saying he didn’t think women could handle the workload of cases. Another top official added that having female judges could violate Islamic proscriptions against meetings between unrelated men and women. The state-run Al-Ahram newspaper reported that female judges could require lengthy maternity leaves, hampering the court’s efficiency.

Such stereotypical arguments are familiar to Egyptian jurist Osama Attaweya, a supporter of female judges who currently serves as an assistant to the justice minister.

He says, over the past three years, dozens of pioneering female judges — out of more than 9,000 total judges — have been quietly building an unassailable record of performance in other courtrooms across Egypt.

One reason these women have moved smoothly into their new role is that they came from the ranks of state prosecutors, which have included women for years.

Hana Dahroug, chief judge of the Cairo Economic Court, says after 15 years as a prosecutor, she wasn’t worried about handling a judge’s duties. Dahroug and her colleagues are hoping this year’s vote against female judges will be the last.

NPR

The small artist colony of Tunis is located at the western end of the Fayoum  oasis on a small elevation overlooking the lake. It is home to a number of writers, painters, and, above all, potters, whose work has made the village famous.

Five years ago, Mohamed Abla opened the Fayoum Art Center. Courses in painting, video art, sculpture, and graphics are regularly offered here.

The 55-year-old artist opened the Caricature Museum in Tunis a year ago, the first such museum in the Middle East.

The idea of the museum specifically took form after the controversy surrounding the Danish Mohammed caricature.

The spacious traditional adobe building, in which the Caricature Museum is housed, currently holds 200 caricatures from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. Most of the drawings are originals with the exception of a few items that come from newspapers and magazines.

The drawings are in color, and they seem daring, direct, and, even for their times, are political and critical of society. The styles of the artists are as various as the topics they choose to draw.

Mohamed Abla’s goal for the future is to establish contacts with caricature museums from all over the world and promote collaboration in order to achieve a greater awareness of Egyptian caricature art abroad.

He is also concerned with the issue of artists being properly paid for their work. In order to change this, the painter would like to start up a publishing house to print books and postcards of the caricatures.

After the Fayoum Art Center, the Caricature Museum, and the already envisaged caricature publishing house, the painter dreams of setting up an additional museum in Tunis devoted to the theme of Egyptian photography.

Excerpted from an article by Amira El Ahl for Qantara.de

Special thanks to Andie Byrnes for the link to the above story.

Suzan and Nimet Habachy have been selling handicrafts made by women from an impoverished community of garbage collectors in Cairo for the past 15 years. The items are an ever-changing assortment of brightly hued rag rugs, patchwork quilts and other crafts pieced together out of unused, donated fabrics. The money from their sale returns to Egypt, financing a weaving workshop, a day care center and other services.

This year, the sale began Wednesday at Calvary-St. George’s Church, at 61 Gramercy Park North in Manhattan, and is to run in the afternoon and evenings until Saturday.

Next weekend, the sisters will take a batch of crafts to a sale in Summit, N.J. Each summer, they set up a table in Chautauqua, N.Y. They have road-tripped to Louisville, Ky., Columbus, Ohio, and Richmond, Va., to sell items at Presbyterian church conventions.

The sisters try to raise about $30,000 each year, enough to provide about a third of the finances for the weaving school, run by an Egyptian group, the Association for the Protection of the Environment, and build a new workshop with about 12 looms.

Excerpted from an article by Sharon Otterman for The New York Times

It was remarkable and extraordinary that this soldier (Alexander the Great) built one of the greatest academic institutions in history. It was called the House of Muses (from which we derive the word “museum”) and contained all the elements of a modern residential university. It comprised four schools — mathematics, letters, astronomy and medicine. The building eventually accumulated the largest library in the ancient world, with hundreds of thousands of volumes. Within just a couple of generations its discoveries included the accurate measurement of the diameter of the earth, the cylinder and piston, the pump and one-way valve, the science of hydraulics and a system of planetary motion.

In 48 B.C., Julius Caesar burned the Egyptian fleet in Alexandria harbor while fighting Pompey. The fire spread to destroy the library, but Caesar did not think to mention the incident in his memoirs. The intellectual gem of antiquity was gone forever.

Excerpted from an article by Dr. Dennis Bloomfield for silive.com

Hawass has published 15 books in several languages and is credited with unearthing important discoveries at the Pyramids, Saqqara, Fayoum and in the Valley of the Kings. During his tenure as head of the SCA, over 5,000 artifacts have been returned from abroad. In 2006, he was listed on Time magazine’s “100 People Who Shape the World.”

Almasry Alyoum

This would give me the opportunity to continue my work, especially the new museums I am building. I would have more time to finish the Akhenaten Museum, the Civilization Museum, the Sohag Museum, the Greco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, and many other museums I want the world to see. I would also have the opportunity to finish the site management plan I began, to preserve pharaonic sites, Jewish synagogues, Coptic churches, and Islamic mosques. However, the most important thing I wish to continue is the training programs I have initiated. I am training the museum personnel, to teach them how to run the new museums. I also want to continue a training program for archaeologists, to teach them about site management, what it means and how they can use it to preserve the sites.

My dream for the coming years is to continue working and especially teaching young people in the SCA how to make good decisions and be assertive, to fill my position. I hope future heads of antiquities can come from within the SCA, where these young people have experience in archaeology and site management, rather than from the University, where they would not gain this valuable experience. This is why I feel that my decision to stay will help me to finish my work and fulfill my dreams.

drhawass.com