SHIFT DELETE 30
A contemporary visual art project and exhibition featuring 13 Egyptian artists, Shift Delete 30 took place at the Saad Zaghloul Cultural Centre's Beit El Umma (House of the Nation) in 2012, with a series of panel discussions running in parallel. It was organized and curated by the Young Artist's Coalition, with support from the Egyptian Ministry of Culture’s Fine Arts Sector, and Finding Projects Association, and the Out of the Circle Organization for the art management of the exhibition.
The featured artists presented works in different mediums which all looked back to reassess the 30 years prior to The Arab Spring, presenting history as they saw fit. The 2011 Revolution in Egypt offered a time for national reflection, which was quickly echoed in the art scene. The artists, all of whom were born within the late 1970s to mid-1980s, have only experienced one president in their lifetime and felt that those years needed to be erased, or in some cases revised, developed, and reintroduced from the artist's perspective. The revolution gave way to critiquing the period in question more openly, as the artists reflect on what had happened to them personally, collectively, and internationally. The exhibition showcased digital and analog works, from film and video multimedia installations and sculptures, where the artists toyed with and manipulated references to contextualize a rapidly changing socio-political background.
Parallel to the exhibition was the series of panel discussions led by key cultural practitioners from various backgrounds within Egypt’s contemporary art scene, including individual artists and curators as well as public and private cultural institutions, foundations, and non-profit organizations.
The discussions covered a range of subjects including cultural policies and art funding and management while providing a platform for questioning the role of art in social development, the role of the curator, and understanding the crisis history between art and society.
Artists
Ahmed Abd ElFattah
Ahmed ElSamrah
Amr Amer
Bassem Yousri
Ibrahim Saad
Islam Kamal
Mohamed Abdallah
Mohamed Ezz
Mohamed Mohsen
Mostafa ElBana
Osama Dawod
Osama A. Moneim
Tamer Shahen
Exhibition from 10- 30 January 2012
At Beit El Uma (House of the Nation) - Saad Zaghloul Cultural Centre