Something stolen, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Blue

2014

In collaboration with Mirjam Linschooten
Installation and book
www.museumoffoundobjects.com

A project based on the 54 items that were stolen or damaged from the Egyptian Museum during the revolution of 2011. By asking residents of greater Cairo: “What object from your home would you like to see displayed in the Egyptian Museum?”, 54 new objects were proposed to replace the 54 which had been looted. The result was an installation in the Ard El Lewa neighborhood of Cairo and series of photographs and stories compiled in a bookwork. To borrow from theorist Ariella Azoulay, our response was to build a “potential history” inviting residents to develop a new archive, extracting themselves from the official record and imagining a different future. By re-proposing a material record of the present, our archive became a community-based process of participation and knowledge production.

A man taking a photograph of a woman in front of a large pink building with palm trees and little sphinx of Giza sculptures on either side of it.
Meanwhile, there was a calm before the storm at the Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square before the anti-Morsi protests. Reports indicated that the June 30th (2013) protests was possibly the largest gathering of people in the history of humankind.
Two people sit at a table writing notes, surrounded by objects.
For a month, we photographed and interviewed people around the objects that were brought to us.
People standing around and looking into a display case with a fowl inside of it, with two large studio lights pointing directly into the case.
No. 37: Fowl (obsessed with his own image)
A blue display case with mirrored walls creating an optical illusion of cards containing Egyptian iconography.
No. 29: Paintings
A blue display case with mirrored walls creating an optical illusion of a mannequin head wearing a leopard print bandana and a black headscarf.
No. 40: Headscarf
A blue display case with mirrored walls creating an optical illusion of the neatly arranged seeds and nuts inside of it.
No. 47: Pyramidal Form
A hand wearing a white archiving glove holds the blue publication against a black background.
Publication cover
Image of a publication spread.
Publication interior showing No. 47: Paintings and No. 48: Bread
Image of a publication spread.
The publication interior showing No. 49: Computer and an image of June 30, 2013 at Tahrir.
Scanned image of a publication spread containing images and descriptions of artifacts.
Publication back matter/object descriptions
A list of items set in black vinyl text on a white gallery wall, a dark grey box on a plinth stands next to it.
Exhibition view at Arc of Alchemy, Sol Koffler Gallery, Providence, RI, USA., 2013.
A blue display case with mirrored walls creating an optical illusion of the neatly arranged seeds and nuts inside of it.
Exhibition view at Arc of Alchemy, Sol Koffler Gallery, Providence, RI, USA., 2013.
Photograph taken in the evening from the street of the small lit up studio on the ground floor with the artist sitting at a table, hand painted posters on colourful paper hang in front of it.
A pop-up photo studio installed in the project space of Artellewa art space in greater Cairo. We worked with a local calligrapher to make announcement posters welcoming residents to bring us objects.