Monuments & Flowers brings together a selection of seminal video work culled from the archives of ArteEast with the work of contemporary voices.
Curated by Regine Basha
Monuments & Flowers draws from the particularly accelerated ebb and flow of destruction and construction, death and regeneration — of cities, of ideologies, of nationalities, of quotidian life and ecosystems — that the region termed the ‘Middle East’ is continually undergoing. The artists selected here internalize this state of constant flux, employing both fictional and diaristic narratives while collapsing the hyper-real with the surreal. Scenes from daily life become infused with a subconscious overlay of desire, fear, alienation or utopian longings. Through highly evocative mixed use of time-based media; ranging from found super 8mm, to stained celluloid, to CGI, many of the works lean towards a retro-futurist lens that is highly attentive to the minutiae and habits of locale, yet slippery in its chronology.
Hand-Me-Downs, 2011
Yto Barrada (Morocco)
Keyword Searches for Dust, 2009
Malak Helmy (Egypt)
Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes & Chachacha, 2013
Lara Baladi (Egypt/Lebanon)
What Things May Come, 2019
Marianne Fahmy (Egypt)
Most Fabulous Place, 2008
Maha Maamoun (Egypt)
Domestic Tourism II, 2009
Maha Maamoun (Egypt)
Monuments & Flowers was curated as part of the ArteEast legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, preserving and presenting over 15 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.
Relying exclusively on footage from Egyptian films that use the pyramids as backdrop, Domestic Tourism II explores the ways in which these iconic historical monuments can be re-appropriated from the “timelessness” of the tourist postcard and reinscribed by the political, social, and historical complexity of their urban landscape.
About the Filmmaker
Maha Maamoun is an artist, curator, and independent publisher. Her work examines the form, function, and currency of common visual and literary images as an entry point to investigating the cultural fabric that we weave and are woven into. She is a founding board member of the Contemporary Image Collective (CiC), co-founder of the independent publishing platform Kayfa, and member of the curatorial team of Forum Expanded at Berlinale.
Maamoun holds a BA in Economics and MA in Middle Eastern History from the American University in Cairo (AUC).
Her artistic practice was shown in exhibitions and biennials including: Constructing the world: Art and economy 1919-1939 and 2008-2018 – Kunsthalle Mannheim; Strange Days: Memories of the Future – Store X and New Museum; The Time is Out of Joint – Sharjah Art Foundation; Century of Centuries – SALT; Like Milking a Stone – Rosa Santos Gallery; The Night of Counting the Years – Fridricianum; Here and Elsewhere – New Museum; Ten Thousand Wiles and a Hundred Thousand Tricks – Meeting Points 7; Forum Expanded – Berlinale 64; Transmediale; Objects in Mirror are Closer than they Appear, Tate Modern; 9th Gwangju Biennale; Momentarily Learning from Mega Events, Makan, Amman; Second World: Where is Progress Progressing, Steirischer Herbst; The End of Money, Witte de With; Sharjah Biennial 10; Mapping Subjectivity, MoMA; Live Cinema, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Ground Floor America, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art; The Future of Tradition/The Tradition of Future, Haus Der Kunst.
Her curatorial work includes the exhibitions How to reappear: Through the quivering leaves of independent publishing (BAC, Beirut & MMAG, Amman); How to maneuver: Shape-shifting texts and other publishing tactics (Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi); In light of the land and in its shadows (Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht); Assembled in Streams of Synonyms (Sharjah Gallery, Cairo); PhotoCairo3 (CiC & Townhouse, Cairo).
- Year2009
- Runtime62 minutes
- LanguageArabic
- CountryEgypt
- DirectorMaha Maamoun
- FilmmakerMaha Maamoun
Monuments & Flowers brings together a selection of seminal video work culled from the archives of ArteEast with the work of contemporary voices.
Curated by Regine Basha
Monuments & Flowers draws from the particularly accelerated ebb and flow of destruction and construction, death and regeneration — of cities, of ideologies, of nationalities, of quotidian life and ecosystems — that the region termed the ‘Middle East’ is continually undergoing. The artists selected here internalize this state of constant flux, employing both fictional and diaristic narratives while collapsing the hyper-real with the surreal. Scenes from daily life become infused with a subconscious overlay of desire, fear, alienation or utopian longings. Through highly evocative mixed use of time-based media; ranging from found super 8mm, to stained celluloid, to CGI, many of the works lean towards a retro-futurist lens that is highly attentive to the minutiae and habits of locale, yet slippery in its chronology.
Hand-Me-Downs, 2011
Yto Barrada (Morocco)
Keyword Searches for Dust, 2009
Malak Helmy (Egypt)
Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes & Chachacha, 2013
Lara Baladi (Egypt/Lebanon)
What Things May Come, 2019
Marianne Fahmy (Egypt)
Most Fabulous Place, 2008
Maha Maamoun (Egypt)
Domestic Tourism II, 2009
Maha Maamoun (Egypt)
Monuments & Flowers was curated as part of the ArteEast legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, preserving and presenting over 15 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.
Relying exclusively on footage from Egyptian films that use the pyramids as backdrop, Domestic Tourism II explores the ways in which these iconic historical monuments can be re-appropriated from the “timelessness” of the tourist postcard and reinscribed by the political, social, and historical complexity of their urban landscape.
About the Filmmaker
Maha Maamoun is an artist, curator, and independent publisher. Her work examines the form, function, and currency of common visual and literary images as an entry point to investigating the cultural fabric that we weave and are woven into. She is a founding board member of the Contemporary Image Collective (CiC), co-founder of the independent publishing platform Kayfa, and member of the curatorial team of Forum Expanded at Berlinale.
Maamoun holds a BA in Economics and MA in Middle Eastern History from the American University in Cairo (AUC).
Her artistic practice was shown in exhibitions and biennials including: Constructing the world: Art and economy 1919-1939 and 2008-2018 – Kunsthalle Mannheim; Strange Days: Memories of the Future – Store X and New Museum; The Time is Out of Joint – Sharjah Art Foundation; Century of Centuries – SALT; Like Milking a Stone – Rosa Santos Gallery; The Night of Counting the Years – Fridricianum; Here and Elsewhere – New Museum; Ten Thousand Wiles and a Hundred Thousand Tricks – Meeting Points 7; Forum Expanded – Berlinale 64; Transmediale; Objects in Mirror are Closer than they Appear, Tate Modern; 9th Gwangju Biennale; Momentarily Learning from Mega Events, Makan, Amman; Second World: Where is Progress Progressing, Steirischer Herbst; The End of Money, Witte de With; Sharjah Biennial 10; Mapping Subjectivity, MoMA; Live Cinema, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Ground Floor America, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art; The Future of Tradition/The Tradition of Future, Haus Der Kunst.
Her curatorial work includes the exhibitions How to reappear: Through the quivering leaves of independent publishing (BAC, Beirut & MMAG, Amman); How to maneuver: Shape-shifting texts and other publishing tactics (Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi); In light of the land and in its shadows (Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht); Assembled in Streams of Synonyms (Sharjah Gallery, Cairo); PhotoCairo3 (CiC & Townhouse, Cairo).
- Year2009
- Runtime62 minutes
- LanguageArabic
- CountryEgypt
- DirectorMaha Maamoun
- FilmmakerMaha Maamoun