Photos by amira noshokaty
The exhibition was held 13-18 November in collaboration with the Alexandria Fine Art Museum, under the Creative Art Fund.
Bab Masr is part of the Welad El-Balad media services company, a network of journalists helping to express the voices and concerns of local communities.
The exhibition showcased the works of of 19 of Egypt’s finest artists representing several generations. Among the prominent artists were Mohammed Abla, Hassan Al-Sharq, Esmat Dawistishi, Ahmed Ezzat and Alaa Awad to name but a few.
“Al-Rehla is a one week event that explores the relationship between local artists and their communities outside of the main urban centres,” explained Fatemah Farag, founder and CEO of Welad El-Balad, to Ahram online.
“It is a collection of 19 artists from Luxor up to the north coast showing their work in a way that reflects that relationship. There is also a series of public lectures which look into the relationship between painting and arts in Egypt and other forms such as literature and cinema itself and journalism.”
“Part and parcel of all these events has been also the release of Welad El-Balad’s movie titled El-Warsha. The film documented the works of [the eponymous theatre troup] El-Warsha and its founder and Director Hassan El-Geretly and the impact it had on the work of theatre across the country and not just within the urban centers, as well as the relationship between heritage and traditional theatre in Egypt and the West,” Farag added.
Directed by Tamer Sami, the film was well received alongside a conversation with El-Geretly that took the audience on a stroll down over 30 years of art with Egypt’s first independent theatre troupe.
Reflecting its own name (“The Workshop”), El-Warsha has been a continuous workshop for artists to examine themselves and explore their intangible heritage. Generations of artists learnt and were always grateful to the place that allowed them to explore their artistic potential to the its maximum.
Al-Rehala will continue to document and highlight local artists of Egypt through various governorates.
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