Posts tagged video

C.Scapes by Maia Gusberti

C.SCAPES from maia gusberti on Vimeo.

By Maia Gusberti

C.Scapes emerged of my curiosity and will to understand more about a multi-faceted, highly controversial and contested public space in Cairo. It was realized between 2007 and 2009, when no one believed in the changes happening now since 2011, lots of them in public space.

I first came to Cairo as an artist in residence in 2006. The streets and public spaces of Cairo instantly draw my interest because of its contradictions: its ever changing multi-layered use, the spontaneous inventions, its livelihood vs. its unwritten rules and regulations, the social restrictions, the emergency law — all these complexity I couldn’t understand intrigued me to study it. It became an intensely instructive artistic and personal approach towards a city and its people I wouldn’t miss ever. While working on C.Scapes I felt diving into a topic much more complex I’d ever imagined. It opened door after door, question after question. I conducted interviews with people from different socio-economic backgrounds in Manial, Maadi, Ard el-Lewa, Rehab City, Heliopolis, Wust el Balad, etc. In the film the presence of the interviewees is indicated through their voices only. I filmed from the confines of private space; from behind windows, curtains and from rooftops, instead of filming on the streets. Initially, this choice was a reaction to restrictions on filming — but to work around the constraints, to find alternative angles and perspectives to approach public space inspired me and were finally deeply influencing and enhancing my project. My aim was a dialog between the inside and the outside, between imagination, reality and the image, between myself, the interviewees and the audience.

Rewatching C.Scapes now obviously uncovers that people in my film precisely pointed out the role of the street as a highly contested, sensible social and political space. They commented — sometimes quite direct, sometimes between the lines, on its role as a lively room, a symbol for freedom and expression and their descriptions became a barometer for the underlaying implications of control and oppression, of a paralyzed society’s hopes, demands and dreams — beneath the daily struggle in this densely populated, multi-layered, segregated city.

Many things changed since I worked on C.Scapes.— I can only talk about from a distance, after following the upheavals, some success and lots of drawbacks from afar. I only visited Cairo a single time since 2011. Egyptians reclaimed the street, reclaimed what should be public, are filming and documenting daily confrontations, struggles and conflicts with all means handy. Camera and public domain are now tools and means of negotiation and resistance of awakened, conscious and politicized citizens.

When watching C.Scapes now, I feel joy — about the liveliness and awareness of people, about their strength to take back what’s instantly theirs: the public space (and lots more). Having in mind what happened since I collected interviews in 2007/08, C.Scapes becomes a so much more complex document than intended. There are comments in C.Scapes touching me deeply, make us thoughtful, make us reflect on what’s happening … It’s the experience of the dense reality about which we’re being told — to realize: it cracked, it’s in process, people demand their space to breath —  they protest, live, even dance — express their life in the streets, in the public sphere that is legitimately and evidently theirs. C.Scapes was intended to be an ongoing dialogue between the interviewees and audience. And its interesting to listen and remember what was phrased and dreamt about aloud before the seed was planted for change …

C.Scapes  a project by Maia Gusberti

37:00 min, Video HD

Concept, image and editing: Maia Gusberti

Sound: Mahmoud Refat

Interviews, translations, assistance: Shahira Issa

Locations:Yasser Naeim & Shahira Issa
© Maia Gusberti 2009

supported by Pro Helvetia Cairo, BMuKK Austria

 

Video-Preview

http://www.maiagusberti.net o C.Scapes Video

 

more Information and texts

http://www.maiagusberti.net o C.Scapes Info

 

Exhibitions, Screenings

Kino im Kunstmuseum Bern (CH) 2013

Connect, Art between Media and Reality, Shedhalle Zürich (CH), 2011 
Swiss Art Awards, Art Basel, 2010 

Aeschlimann-Corti Award, Kunsthaus Langenthal (CH), 2010

Where are you, Pro Helvetia, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo 2009

C.Scapes, Stadtgalerie, PROGR, Bern 2009

Ten Cairo Music Videos

It is the end of 2012 and I’ll just use the occasion to put together a top ten list of favorite music videos or musical scenes from film shot on location in Cairo. In some of these clips Cairo is unrecognizable, particularly those from the 60s where the city appears to have functioning public transport, low-rise low-density neighborhoods, far less cars and more trees than one can ever imagine this city having.

Opening sequence of the musical film “Love in Karnak,” 1967. مقدمة فيلم غرام في الكرنك

The opening sequence of this dance/musical film about Reda Dance Troupe going on a trip to Luxor takes us around Cairo starting at residential districts (note the amount of large stand alone modern houses with gardens) to historic residential areas such as the Citadel (with astonishingly well kept houses, stone paved street! and lush trees at the foot of the Mohamed Ali Mosque!), then proudly showcasing Cairo’s fast modern trams, tree-lined streets, the Cairo Tower, Cairo University, Downtown and the Ramses Statue outside the Central Station. The conclusion of the clip is a dance in the main hall of the train station following the far more sensitive renovation it underwent at the time compared to last year’s disaster.

Read more »

Profile: Ramses Wissa Wassef

“An artist’s work is no longer of much use in modern society. Exhibitions in art galleries are visited by people as social events, like race meetings or cocktail parties. Basically, art is dying in the twentieth century because it has been torn as under from daily life. It has become part of the trade in rare, expensive luxuries, or else it is cast aside. It undergoes all day to day caprices of fashion and gains attention by being provocative or sensational, or even by making use of drugs. And then the works that have won fame, or notoriety, are put into museums to be admired” -Ramses Wissa Wassef, Woven by Hand.

Ramses Wissa Wassef (1911-1974) is the architect who best conceptualized and designed modern houses adapted from rural vernacular architecture in Egypt. His architecture is a direct result of his involvement with the social and cultural contexts that inspired him in the first place and the context in which he designed. Unlike Hassan Fathy, who was celebrated first in the West and later in Egypt and the Arab region for his mud brick architecture, RWW worked closely with people as partners, not as recipients of his wisdom. The legacy of Ramses Wissa Wassef lives on despite the lack of academic attention, particularly from the West (in contrast to Hassan Fathy) because of the humanist approach of his design process. The inhabitants and users of his buildings today praise RWW and share fond memories of their time with him as a member of the community. His architecture oeuvre is not limited to the domed village houses and includes private villas, public buildings and churches.

Below is a brief biography provided by Archnet.org

Ramses Wissa Wassef was an Egyptian architect and educator. He earned his BA degree from the Ecole Des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1935. His graduation project “A potter’s house in Old Cairo ” received the first prize by the examination board. Upon returning to Cairo, in 1938, he was nominated as a professor of art and history of architecture in the college of Fine Arts in Cairo.

“One cannot separate beauty from utility, the form from the material, the work from its function, man from his creative art.”

In 1951, Ramses Wissa Wassef embarked upon an experiment in creativity which would become universally acclaimed. He set out to prove that creativity was innate — that anyone could produce art. He had become discouraged by the general decline of creativity in 20th century urban culture and dismayed by the deadening influence of mass production. He felt that routine education was stifling. For his experiment he chose uninhibited, free-spirited young children who were isolated from many aspects of modern civilization.

Wassef saw that the “modern architectural revolution”, which had hit Cairo, was producing a multiplicity of buildings constructed without any sense of aesthetics but rather for their fast rentability. From this point on, Wassef was firmly resolved to never sacrifice his artistic vision for current trends of construction.

For a list of buildings by Ramses Wissa Wassef along with a selections of related articles on the architect provided by Archnet.org, click here.

[Villagers of Haraneya outside of Cairo speak of their experience living and working with Ramses Wissa Wassef and his efforts to establish a the center for Egyptian tapestry. Video by Omnia Khalil & Tarek Waly]

Two recent exhibitions celebrated RWW, the first was hosted at the American University in Cairo’s Rare Books and Special Collections Library (February 2012) and the second was hosted at the Palace of the Arts – Cairo Opera House site, Zamalek (November 2012).

For further information, here are some useful links:

Wissa Wassef Art Center

Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Wiisa Wassef Art Center

Ramses Wissa Wassef Architectural Drawings at the AUC Rare Books Library

Egypt Today: Celebrating Ramses Wissa Wassef

Athar Lina: connecting people with heritage

Whose Monument: Participatory Design Project for Monument-Street Buffer Zones

A collaboration between the Ministry of Antiquities and the Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute. The project is a series of workshops, debates and meetings to discuss the relationship between the monument and the surrounding neighborhood, the entities responsible for it and those with a vested interest in it or even those inconvenienced by it. We discuss who owns it, who protects it and improves it and who puts it at risk. The objective is to provide a environment of communication of the different points of view of the three main stakeholders: residents, government and civil society. 

In participatory design all stakeholders are involved in the decision making process in all its details and stages. This is to narrow the gap between the monument and the community and allow it to assume ownership of the monument and to protect it through use. 

This general issue is discussed through a specific case-study; the monument-street buffer zone and in a specific area; al-Khalifa Street between the mosque of Ahmad ibn Tulun and the shrine of al-Sayyida Nafisa.

The project consists of five phases, to find out more details visit the project website.

The Tower: symbol of corruption

البرج | El Borg from Gehad abdel Nasser on Vimeo.

Gezira Tower, a cylindrical 166 meter tall building in Zamalek is seen by some as an eyesore, by others as a symbol of failed development and by others as a visible reminder of Egypt’s corruption and defunct governance. The building was developed in the late 1970s and was intended to be a hotel and Cairo’s tallest skyscraper. The developer was given approval on a personal basis from president Sadat, and later he faced difficulty completing the project also because of personal conflicts with other businessmen and government officials. The building was never completed and never inhabited. This is a story of a building which symbolizes all that has been wrong with Egypt’s development, economy and government since the 1970s when a new moneyed elite was ushered in to control the country and to open it to international markets.

The short documentary above (Arabic) includes interviews with the building’s developer, residents of Zamalek and shows images from the building’s unfinished interiors. Last May journalist Bradley Hope entered the building and interviewed its developer and published an article in The National.

Whether the Tahrir Square “revolution” was a success - or even whether it was a revolution at all - now hinges in part on whether a new, democratically elected president and parliament can begin reforming a sclerotic, graft-ridden economic system that has left Egyptians such as the 81-year-old Mr Fouda shaking their heads in disappointment, disgust and cynicism.

“It’s a very long story,” said Mr Fouda in his Zamalek apartment as he began describing how a building that was conceived as a crown jewel of a president’s vision for a new, modern Egypt is today an eyesore. “It will probably get longer.”

Mr Fouda bought the land on which the Gezira Tower sits in 1968 during the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser. But it was under Anwar Sadat, who introduced reforms to overturn his predecessor’s socialist ideas and open the economy to the world, that the idea for the tower took off.

Read the full article, click here.

Lessons from elsewhere: Bogotá

Egyptian Urban Action

Our responsibility as architects and urban planners is not transforming or changing the economic status of residents. We do not dream of a Parisian Cairo or another version of New York. But as citizens in this society we are governed by our humanity principals to seek an appropriate and improved life for the neglected sector, and also help to expose the hidden potentials and positive actions within those communities. According to the aim of seeking better a society our initiative Egyptian Urban Action tackles such stereotypes as “Eliminating informal areas”, “the uprising of the hungry ones” and “Thugs”… and the state’s attempts to convince the rest of the population of dangers from ” the informal area residents”, the questions remain …
Do residents of informal areas have the means to develop their own living conditions?
Does the state provide for their basic living rights?
Does providing housing units in a far remote area, Enough?

The initiative and exhibition of Egyptian Urban Action is funded by The British Council, Cairo and Tarek Waly Center. And consists of two halls; the first contains urban analysis manifested in images and maps where we observe cases of urban deterioration with some suggestions, and the second hall will be showing a series of short documentaries (25 minutes) where local residents of such areas express their problems and suggest alternatives.

The scheduled events of the exhibition are:
7th July 2012 Exhibition Opening - 7.00 pm
8th July: Discussions day 1: 7.00 pm
Action planning projects’ experiences in Cairo, Speakers:
Khalil Shaat - Dina Shehayeb - Hany Miniawy
15 July: Discussions day 2 : 7.00 pm
The state policy towards informal areas, speakers:
Manal Tibe - Mohamed Abdel Azim

Open discussions will be in 8th and 15th of July – in the main exhibition hall
For any inquires or questions, please e-mail
omniakhalil@walycenter.org - 0100 125 2473
Partial work of the initiative, published in 31st March 2012

It’s Countryside- Life outside Cairo

A fantastic short film shared by Zawia magazine documents life outside Cairo, particularly in Sohag in Upper Egypt. While the south generates massive state income from tourism in addition to providing much of Egypt’s food, wealth has been in the hands of too few and the money never circulates back into these local economies. Egypt’s highly centralized system has had severe impact on the economy and development of small and medium sized cities.

Right to Housing initiative

“No sir these are self-built communities”.

The film is the first of a series of shorts that document the problems and challenges that the majority of Egyptians face in their built environment. These include hazards such as collapsing buildings, pollution and floods, as well as deprivation from basic infrastructure such as water, energy and public transport. The series also links these problems with the state’s policies that are directly or indirectly linked to the built environment, stating a set of demands to pressure policy change that falls in line with the right to housing.
 

“Ashwaeyat? la ya beih, dih maghoudat dthateyya”,  is merely the introduction to the series as it sets out to document the day to day experiences of a range of different communities in the absence of the right to housing and how most of them have been forced to resort to self-reliance to provide adequate shelter and build a functioning community.

The Right to Housing series is open source and we encourage the distribution and showing of the films be it on the street, in a lecture hall or on tv. The first film will be made available on youtube for download and commenting just after the launch and the rest of the films will follow.
The initiative in brief
The Right to Housing, a Socially Just and Sustainable Built Environment aims to link the challenges of our built environment with the Right to Housing. If the Right to Housing were to become a constitutional right and associated laws, appropriate and sustainable solutions to these challenges would be pursued in the form of drastic change in built environment related policy that would reflect the actual needs of our communities.

The initiative is divided into a number of phases, the main three are:
Phase One: General documentation through film and interviews of a range of challenges faced by communities in their built environment. These films will be shown in places that provoke dialogue either between communities and themselves or between communities and built environment professionals and policy makers.
Phase Two: More detailed mapping of a set number of built environment challenges and sorting them into categories, proposing a set of generalized solutions. The outcome would be presented in the form of a booklet and a series of seminars.
Phase Three: Accurate mapping of the most pertinent category and the proposal of a set of solutions.
 

Partners
Phase One of the initiative includes Shadow Ministry of Housing, a blog that critiques built environment policy and Mosireen, a citizen-journalism collective, and is supported by the Arab Digital Expression Foundation, ADEF.
Contacts
 

Blog: shadowministryofhousing.blogspot.com
Email: smoh@mail.com
Twitter: @shadowmoh

Cairo Heritage Interview