The ‘Retrieving Absence’ exhibition brings the visions of three different artists on old homes together, for the first time.
The exhibition, held at the Contemporary Image Collective in downtown Cairo and runs until July 30, shows the different perspective of each of these artists on these homes.
Hagar Ezzeldin, a Cairo-based artist and a member of the Qaaf-Laam Collective, focuses on the household work of middle-class women.
She pays special attention to the time, effort and aesthetic choices this work takes, copying it in the light of the artistic production process itself.
Nadia Mounir, a budding photographer, brings together some of the most important family photos – some of them personal – and adds them to the site to create a life-like experience of an old home.
Rawiya Sadek, a plastic artist, translator and journalist, brings to the exhibition a distinguished research on pioneering Egyptian feminist Doria Shafik’s work, drawing parallels between the feminist and her own family, including some shared experiences, struggles and rifts.
‘Retrieving Absence’ is divided into several sections. One of them is called ‘Domestic Fantasies’. It is where Ezzeldin brings together six overlapping paintings.
Two of the paintings stand on two of the walls of the section. In the middle, there is an installation, representing four windows, each of them decorated with fabrics from middle-class homes.
Ezzeldin said she tries to present what she saw inside middle-class homes in the past in a new form.
“I try to do this from an angle that allows it to be critiqued,” she told the Egyptian Mail.
“I present these homes in a new light through a set of new perceptions of fantasies,” she added.
The name of Ezzeldin’s work, ‘Domestic Fantasies’, derives from this idea. It also derives, she said, from the artistic style within the work itself.
She combines her work with household items. For example, she converts a canvas drawing she made as a child into a wall painting, using a spray bottle.
She said she tries to approach household work in an artistic manner.
“I do this within the context of a general cultural and social production that we live in as artists,” Ezzeldin said.
Ezzeldin and other artists participating in this exhibition trace the parts of middle-class homes and deconstruct their time and connotations to create a new picture.
In doing this, they use aesthetics they see every day in middle-class homes.
‘Domestic Fantasies’ is part of an extended project on middle-class homes, focusing on the role of women in these homes, according to Ezzeldin.
Her paintings walk around the middle class, especially in the 1980s, with an eye on exploring the space art provides for the traditional search for the middle class.
Ezzeldin is also keen on providing space for critical perspectives that monitor social roles and relations that arise from home designs, leisure, cooking, handicrafts and embroidery, with a focus on women.
“Relations between neighbours or relatives and the way leisure was spent in the past were stronger and less independent than what we have at present,” Ezzeldin said.
These relations and this way differed, she said, because human bonds were the main feature of life in the past.
Nevertheless, those trying to be different or stay away from these bonds were usually met with anger or disdain.
“Some things keep living from the past, while others have already totally disappeared,” Ezzeldin said. “These things can be a good prelude for understanding the past and the present.”
By setting middle-class homes in the 1980s against those of the present, Ezzeldin does not say which is better or which is worse.
However, this comparison reflects critical wistfulness to the past on her part and on the part of the other artists participating in the exhibition.
‘Retrieving Absence’ is accompanied by a large number of events, including a series of seminars and workshops.
One of the seminars was organised on June 14. The event was dedicated to the way Ezzeldin’s work evolved. She was keen on throwing light on invisible aspects in her production.
These invisible aspects, she said, are an original part of the work itself.
“This is especially clear in the production of an artist who makes art, while she carries out her household duties,” Ezzeldin said.
