DEGREES UNEDITED

reviewed by Caryll Jack Dawber

Alongside their own reasons for attendance, everyone comes to a symposium from their own social, political and cultural perspective.  Usually, prior knowledge of the topic to be discussed and presented can be taken as read.  However, although I have previously visited Egypt, it was prior to the changes the artistic community has fought to make in approaches towards the arts in Cairo over the past ten years.  It was exceptionally difficult to research matters pertaining to contemporary Egyptian art - there is a distinct lack of printed material available and Internet searches net eclectic results of disparate quality. 

Being from a country about which the world has a particular opinion, mostly based upon an awareness of the legacy of Ancient Egypt, means that Egyptians have a strange view of their homeland - experienced directly from within and reflected back as a cultural caricature by a largely ignorant world.  This duality adds to the overall confusion as modern Egypt struggles to carve a global identity after the turmoil of its more recent history.  This problem of identity was key in the presentations of the majority of the symposium contributors, albeit viewed from differing standpoints.  Indeed, the first contributor, Dr Amr Abdel Kawi explained how Egyptian designers were using international and local marketing strategies to position Egyptian products within the world markets, brand modern Egyptian design practices and make the resultant objects produced desirable globally as well as locally.  In contrast to this, the next speaker, Ikram Nosshi, director of the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Centre, provided a different perspective when discussing the weaving skills of villagers trained in their craft from childhood.

Ramses Wissa Wassef was an Egyptian architect who established his centre to introduce children to the technicalities of the traditional craft of weaving at a loom, leaving them to then foster their innate creativity as they worked.  Without formal design or art training and with no interference about the content of their design, the children quickly developed their own style and confidence in their work.  Nosshi and his wife, Wissa Wassef's daughter, currently work with the descendants of this initial project and the woven pieces produced are exhibited worldwide.  The weavers stay fairly ignorant of the machinations of the art world as Nosshi maintains it adversely affects the creativity of the weaver to be instrumental in the transactions regarding their work. He sees the Centre as protecting the individual voice of each craftsman from the potentially corrupting influences of the market.  The obvious reluctance of the Centre to equip weavers with the knowledge and skills requisite to represent themselves better within the commercial sphere is perhaps something that will need to be addressed as the pieces produced continue to increase in popularity and value.  That being said, the exquisite craftsmanship of the works was apparent and the instinctive compositions amazing to consider in their complexity.

Glenn Adamson, head of Graduate Studies at the Victoria and Albert museum research department, challenged symposium attendees to reconsider their preconceived ideas about what actually constitutes 'craft' and how the friendly imagery of the word is a fallacy.  He examined our insistence upon the ethical standard implied by the word 'craft', its value and where that value is perceived to lie - highlighting the repetitive 'inhuman' nature of craftwork upon production lines in modern sweatshops, the fallback of communities upon crafts when their livelihoods were otherwise removed and the uncomfortable truth that handcrafted items are not always admirable, culture-enhancing objects - citing the handcrafted nature of the atomic bomb dropped onto Hiroshima as a perfect illustration.  Fine art and craft have long been uneasy bedfellows.  Craft can be considered as something involving knowledge of a particular skill and the ability to realise that skill with specific materials.  Art is often viewed as a conceptual pursuit that may utilise craft for its execution, the value of craft thus being that of a useful tool.  Adamson's presentation highlighted the difficulty in maintaining such attempts to differentiate terms like 'art', 'craft' and 'design' and gave all present food for thought about any fixed definitions they themselves held.

The contemporary artists who provided the last input of the first day, Susan Hefuna and Khaled Hafez, were exceptional ambassadors of current Egyptian art practice.  Although working in very different ways with incomparable media, Hefuna and Hafez both consider themes related to their relationship with Egypt and the relationship of Egypt with the rest of the world.  Hefuna, an artist of both German and Egyptian nationality, highlights in subtle ways the way in which cultural perspective colours the perception of a viewer upon a piece of work.  Using wooden screens traditionally used in Egyptian architecture, mashrabiyas, that allowed air to circulate through the buildings and permitted women inside to look out without being observed from the street, Hefuna works words in English and in Arabic into their carved patterns.  Depending upon the location in which they are viewed, reaction to the screens can be markedly different - particularly outside of an Arabic literate environment where the Arabic script can become an almost hidden layer that not every viewer can comprehend or even pick up on.  Layers play a large part in the construction of her drawings and even in the participatory projects she has undertaken with members of the public.

Khaled Hafez investigates a variety of themes within his work.  Being particularly aware of the problem of identifying Egypt's place within the world, especially in regard to the many layers of influence upon the country in ancient and recent times, Hafez has identified Middle Eastern and Arabo-Islamic influences within his video work and the influence of Ancient Egyptian heritage upon his paintings.   He states that his work is about irony and humour although it may deal with difficult topics, particularly in his video pieces.  Combining photocopies of 'idealised' bodies from modern consumer publications with Ancient Egyptian gods' masks and those of the superhero Batman, Hafez merges the sacred and the commercial in his paintings not only to pose questions but also to reference the relief painting style of his ancestors.  Both he and Hefuna enjoy close relationships with the craftsmen they employ to build screens and stretchers; Hefuna commenting that the discrepancies between her plan and their interpretation can add to an object and Hafez amusing attendees with tales of his carpenter's reluctance to provide stretchers that did not conform to the window frame sizes he was trained to build.  In reflecting upon the first day of the symposium, chairwoman Janis Jeffries commented upon this refreshing trusting relationship with craftsmen who could bring the unexpected to an artist's work, have this met with humour and it cause no threat to future transactions.

William Wells, director of the Townhouse Gallery established in 1998 in downtown Cairo, showed a series of photographs to illustrate not only the density of architecture and population in Cairo but also to allow symposium attendees to consider the visual aesthetic faced by Cairene artists. The rapid expansion of Townhouse in the past eleven years has had a noticeable effect on the artistic community, encouraging the establishment of artist-led collectives, galleries and events.  However, it has also created a regenerative effect upon the craftsmen within the immediate locale due to increased interest in the area as well as the needs of the gallery and its users.  Wells emphasised the positive local benefits in terms of education, support and security provided by the gallery.  However, he also mentioned that the locals now held unrealistic expectations of the responsibilities the gallery should have in relation to their living environments and that interest from artists led to some craft traditions being modified to suit commercial needs.  Although Glenn Adamson had spoken about the need for craft knowledge to adapt to meet community requirements, the sudden change in the handcrafting of local aroussa dolls after a Townhouse project made me feel somewhat uneasy.  Although this opportunity to improve the finances of impoverished citizens may bring many undeniable benefits, the transformation of a meaningful object - the very quality that attracted the interest of the artist in the first place - into a mere tourist souvenir seems incredibly sad.  It illustrates one of the problems faced by the contemporary Egyptian artists regarding tradition versus consumerism.   One of the curators who had been on the Forming Ideas trip, which led to the symposium, Grainne Sweeney, reassured me that she felt that Townhouse was a positive addition, existing with a strong sense of collaboration between the gallery and the local people.  Nonetheless, Townhouse is still a very young establishment and has undergone rapid expansion in its short life span.  Only time will tell what the effects upon its neighbours will be, above and beyond Wells' assertion that Townhouse itself is being priced out of the work of the craftsmen with whom they share their lane. 

Speaking with equal passion, the next contributor was Dina Bakhoum, who works in conservation and restoration of historic Cairene buildings.  Bakhoum's practice involves education of the craftsmen involved in the projects, bestowing upon them a sense of universal worth in the work they do beyond it being an individual occupation.  She highlighted the importance of collaboration, with conservation work providing an equal ground for people for diverse social, religious and educational backgrounds to work together on a project benefitting them all.  However, Bakhoum also acknowledged that craftsmen are under pressure to sacrifice quality due to the availability of cheap imitations of their work and market demands for inexpensive quantity.  Although the quality of work undertaken in her projects is unaffected by such trends, it is in direct opposition to her intention that traditional craft skills are maintained and passed on through the conservation of historic buildings.  Bakhoum and Wells shared their frustrations regarding the recent practice of businessmen buying property in downtown Cairo with vast differences in interest about their future usage with Aleya Hamza, former curator of the Contemporary Image Collective, when she mentioned that the Cairo artist collective recently lost their gallery space due to inflated rent increases after such action.  During her presentation, Hamza outlined the projects undertaken by the CIC in Cairo using public spaces and the city itself as gallery and subject.

The final presentations were from curators Sarah Black, Venetia Porter and Rose Issa.  Under the theme of 'Future Directions', each approached the topic with slight difference from their own personal stance.  Black, one of the curators who made the Cairo trip and director of Projectbase, a collaborative undertaking based in Cornwall, discussed her organisation's plans to develop a project between artists Lucy and Jorge Orta and the art group affiliated with Townhouse in Cairo.  The venture, although dependent upon development over time at present, is about discourse, supporting emergent practice and the establishment of an international exchange element.  Porter, curator of the Middle Eastern department at the British Museum, described the museum display approach to contextualise contemporary Iranian art in the collection and spoke of a possible collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum related to new purchases of Middle Eastern photography.  Rose Issa, a fervent champion of art and artists from the 'Arab nation' (which she stipulated is not monolithic but does hold stronger linguistic and religious links than, for example, Europe as a whole) lamented the lack of information available about contemporary Egyptian art.  Her hope that symposiums such as Khamseen would lead to better publication and distribution opportunities for artists from the Middle East reiterated the opinions of many contributors who had voiced an awareness of this lack of current discourse.

It is unclear whether use of traditional craft techniques to create art have ever fallen out of favour in Egypt, and the symposium did little to end the art/craft distinction debate.  What is apparent, however, is that artists and curators of all nationalities share common themes related to place and identity for investigation.  Ultimately, Khamseen provided an opportunity to consider the importance of people and the value of collaboration in modern practice, regardless of global location.  The opportunities to view, discuss and appreciate work made from a different outlined perspective leads to richer experiences for art practitioners, craftsmen, curators and viewers alike.

www.formingideas.co.uk

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First published: a-n.co.uk July 2009