Detour
In the context of the funding program TANDEM SHAML, Videonale – Festival for Contemporary Video Art in Bonn, Germany and Nabta Art and Culture Center Cairo, Egypt developed the workshop and exhibition project DETOUR. DETOUR took place during a period of five months between October 2014 and February 2015. Within the project, two workshops were organized in November and December 2014 with the participation of seven artists from Egypt and Germany. The results were presented in an exhibition in January 2015.Our goal was to create a platform where, on the one hand, artists from different cultural contexts meet and work together on a topic – the use of public urban space – which concerns both sides in different ways and which on the other hand, offers activities to the local community and provides them with a different understanding of their own behaviour in relation to urban space.DETOUR aimed at raising questions about the interaction with public space in Cairo in general and after the revolution in special. How does our urban environment affect our (cultural) identity, our movements, behaviors, and interactions with the city and with others moving in it? What makes urban spaces cultural spaces which can be read differently depending on who reads them? And how can we influence these spaces and the story they tell? With these questions in mind, the participating artists were asked to develop their own story of Downtown Cairo. This publication documents, all the artistic projects realized in the context of the DETOUR workshop and further, provide an alternative map to be used as a guidebook to the local spots and venues of the projects in Downtown Cairo
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