The British Museum’s Modern Egypt project will be launched in Cairo on Friday 14 October with several talks and a public installation in Kodak Passageway in the city’s downtown district.

The project looks at the relationship between people and the objects they have been using over the past century.

According to the event description, some of the questions the project tackles are “how have things shaped human experience in Modern Egypt? And what are the objects produced and used by Egyptians during the past century? How do Egyptians shape the materiality of things and how have things shaped the identities of Egyptians?”

A long-term mission still in progress, the completed project will contain an extensive collection of these material objects to provide a panorama on life in modern Egypt, displayed at the British Museum in London.

To present this project in Cairo, a series of events will be taking place at Kodak Passageway.

Between 12 and 19 October there will be a pop-up installation of objects from the last century.

Starting 14 October, a series of talks over three days will shed light on the project and on parallel initiatives, starting with the official launch and introduction of the project by curator Mohamed Elshahed, the architect, researcher, and writer behind the Cairobserver blog.

In the same evening, there will be two presentations; one on behalf of the Women’s Museum Project by the Women and Memory Forum, and another by the Downtown Museum of Al-Ismaelia for Real Estate, with a discussion about the usage of everyday materials in the context of these two museums.

The next day artist Huda Lutfi will speak about her use of everyday objects in her artwork, followed by an open discussion.

On the third evening concluding the talks, collector Amgad Naguib will present a talk centred on acquiring modern heritage objects and the market for them, discussing the processes of collecting objects pertaining to Egypt’s recent history.

Programme:

Wednesday 12 October to Wednesday 19 October, 12pm-8pm
Installation is open to the public in Kodak Passageway

Friday 14 October, 7pm
Launch of the Modern Egypt project, talk by project curator Mohamed Elshahed. 
Talks by Women and Memory Forum and Al-Ismaelia for Real Estate

Saturday 15 October, 7pm
Talk by artist Huda Lutfi followed by discussion

Sunday 16 October, 7pm
Talk by collector Amgad Naguib followed by discussion

Kodak Passageway, between 34 and 20 Adly St, Downtown Cairo

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