Journey through modern day Cairo via the works of some 65+ emerging architecture, product design and graphic design talents, brought together in one exhibition for the very first time by curator Mohamed Elshahed.
Journey through modern day Cairo via the works of some 65+ emerging architecture, product design and graphic design talents, brought together in one exhibition for the very first time by curator Mohamed Elshahed.
Mohamed Elshahed who founded local architecture and urbanism blog Cairobserverand is currently heading up the British Museum’s Modern Egypt Project, named the exhibition Cairo Now! City Incomplete. The theme of incompleteness is a reflection of the city’s status quo: its disjointed transport system, partially restored historic buildings, expansion into the desert with partly realized satellite cities, speculative urbanism where buildings are never fully completed to avoid taxation, and the tendency to leave concrete sticking out of roofs in the hope of adding additional floors in the future. This theme is extended to the unrealized potential of the city’s current generation of designers.
As Elshahed explains “Cairo Now! sheds light on the city's emerging designers who, despite the lack of a marketplace or an infrastructure supporting their practices, continue to innovate, to turn the city’s trash into new products and revive bygone traditions with a contemporary edge. They always take Cairo with all its flaws as their muse and as the source of their creativity. The city’s zeitgeist is reflected in their often satirical take on the absurdities that make up contemporary Cairo. ”