Here we are today with the publication of the fourth booklet, AtWork Cairo Chapter 04, which tells the experience of the workshop that took place at Darb 1718 in December 2015 through images, interview and ideas.
To develop new forms of reality it’s necessary to produce traces that testify to their existence and at the same time ensure that they can be replicable. That’s why we are very happy to share with you today the booklet dedicated to AtWork Cairo: the fourth chapter of the series that collect the traces of AtWork’s path during these last years. “If we don’t tell our stories, nobody else will” is the slogan of Maisha Foundation, our AtWork Kampala partner, which we have also adopted in the course of our journey.
We believe that it’s necessary to build these small paper houses where we can collect the stories one by one, as they unravel in the tangles of our network of young creative talents. Every booklet will become the vehicle and the discovery tool for whomever will lay their hands on it.
AtWork Cairo Chapter 04 is the fourth volume of our small AtWork series, which follows the booklets produced for Dakar, Abidjan and Kampala. These 64 pages trace the experience of 16 local young creative talents that have participated to the workshop titled “Something Else”, the name taken after the Cairo Off Biennale that hosted the initiative.
In the social context of Cairo where the freedom of expression is constantly threatened, AtWork was an opportunity to come together to speak and think freely, search for new artistic and social perspectives on the world; a way to question one’s certainties, step out of one’s comfort zones, seek alternative routes off the beaten track, and overcome pre-established schemes. Indeed, to aspire to something else.
Together with the images and words, that summarize the collective experience lived by the participants, the booklet contains three important interviews with the workshop protagonists: the one with our advisor and workshop leader Simon Njami, the one with the prominent artist Moataz Nasreldin, also the founder of Darb 1718 and the one with Youssef Limoud, an established Egyptian artist who was also part of the Cairo Off Biennale. The artist and assistant professor of the American University in Cairo Heba Amin, who has facilitated the workshop, has written a piece on her AtWork experience for Why Africa?, which we are re-publishing in this booklet.
Now is the moment to leave you to discover this new chapter for yourself. You can leaf through the entire booklet here. Enjoy your reading!