people who inhabited them: Marwan Elgamal loves the stories of the Sufi disciples who created their own reality in the unassuming khelwa; while Huda Lutfi and Yasmine El Meleegy were both mesmerized by the bimaristan, the hospital within the complex. Lutfi considered it her challenge to ‘fictionalise’ the stories of those who once lived there, while El Meleegy used that medical past to consider the pharmaceutical practices of today. In Bayt al-Suhaymi, we find other stories: Farida El Gazzar was moved ‘by the details of craftsmanship and how all the intricate designs in each room were intertwined ... [the] feeling of serenity’; Diaa El Din Daoud, by the structure and practical use of the mashrabiyya. With his ceramics, Moaaz El Dmasy, reflects on the science behind the creation of the building. Ibrahim Ahmed places found objects—a discarded chandelier, an armchair—in the rooms now devoid of their elaborate furniture, arguing for the power that objects hold in our imagination, inviting the viewer ‘to interrogate the sterilization of the city’s history’. That same power of the object is taken a step further by Hany Rashed who thinks about the objects of everyday life, how they ‘accumulate biographies that can irrevocably transform them’. Why else he asks, ‘would we hang onto the seemingly worthless things left behind by our loved ones’?
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There is such thought-provoking depth and richness in all these works in which all of Egypt’s history—starting with the time of the Pharaohs—is somehow encompassed in these four exhibition spaces. This era was marvelled at by medieval travellers such as Ibn Jubayr, who visited Cairo in 1183 CE and described ‘ the ancient pyramids, of miraculous construction and wonderful to look upon, four-sided like huge pavilions rearing into the skies’.3 Ahmed Askalany creates playful sculptures out of materials associated with the crafts of Ancient Egypt; Ibrahim El Dessouki captures the ancient rituals of preparing the dead for their journey. Mohamed Banawy, on the other hand, evokes the blessing of Haby, the God of the Nile, ‘the Majestic Nile’ ‘the peculiar
سرديات معاد ختيلها
REIMAGINED NARRATIVES