full essay - Contemporary Practices

20 EssayOn quiet afternoons and busy times: Darb 1718. A portrait ofa cultural centerBy Sara-Duana MeyerWe sit outside the office on the porch. It is quiet, thelow buildings surrounding the spacious courtyard glowyellow in the light of a late afternoon. A soft clangingcan be heard from one of the pottery workshops, nextto us a cat stretches lazily for a zigzagging fly andMohammed brings tea, smiling his sweet friendly smile.It is unusual to find the team at Darb 1718 with somuch time on their hands, there is always somethingto do these days. But the power is down, it has beendown for a few hours, and the team is waiting to getback to work. “This has happened a lot over the pastfew days,” says Moataz Nasr, founder, visual artist, and,most of all, cultural activist, as he prefers to be called.But then he waves the thought away like a fly and looksat the team. “In 2012 I started to really have a team,” hesays proudly, and underlines this by pointing at ReemHatem, his public relation manager, who joined onlythree months earlier, filled with ideas and energy. “Theyare a gift for Darb 1718. I’m happy that Darb attractsthis kind of people, this quality.”“So many things are coming up,” May Shehab addedlater. May is another fairly new member of the team, aproject manager, and has the same commitment eachmember seems to be radiating. “Let me see, well, thereis ART BEAT, a music and arts festival, then numerousexhibitions we are really looking forward to, a recyclingfashion show with a designer from Sweden, a whole lot ofworkshops, performances, all of this in cooperation withdifferent local and international partner institutions...actually we are running out of space!” And then shemuses a little about expanding possibilities. The art andculture center has been growing over the years, bit by bit,according to means and circumstances: the exhibitionspace, that has so far hosted about 40 exhibitions, hasbeen extended into other buildings and the office hasmoved to make space for workshops and artist talks.These movements and transformations somehow act asa metaphor for the avidness of the team to keep growingin every sense and to be open for change, which reflectspart of Darb 1718’s philosophy.

Essay23curiosity, is the first step towards the awareness anddevelopment the team has in mind. But, exactly at thispoint, a little boy wheezes by pushing a big wheelbarrow,his eyes bright from concentration and effort. I haveseen him and a handful of other even smaller childrenbefore and was amazed and a little taken aback byhow seriously they take their work. It is Reem whoanswers my unasked question by pointing out that intheir community working is not an option, and I feel alittle stupid. So they come after school to help out andearn money – and, says Reem, they get involved. Theywatch, randomly attend activities, and learn. And haveperceivably developed a lot. “We offer new perspectivesto the community,” says Reem, and Moataz adds, “weare trying to motivate, to make them ask and comecloser.” A few project ideas are in the pipeline that willinvolve the community more directly and the team isvisibly getting excited as they mention this. A lot of theplans are waiting to be implemented at the right timewith the right partners. But for now, Darb 1718 is stillin the post-proceedings of a very big, ambitious andlikewise successful educational project they have beencarrying out over the last few months, which is one ofthe reasons I am now sitting with them. For a moment,it sounds like the power is back and the air-conditioninside sputters back to life. But no one moves yet. Theyhave jumped before, eager to get at least some urgenttasks done, and then, like now, only a few momentslater it is quiet again. A cicada can be heard. A birddives low between the buildings. A mobile phone rings,the intern has a quick question, and casually other teammembers pass by.Later on the team will move to somewhere with aslightly more secure power and Internet line for therest of the day, but for now no one is in a hurry. Amoment of rest is well deserved, the past few monthshave been busy enough. “Mashrou3 Hagar: ArtEmpowers!” was the first project of this size Darb 1718carried out, dedicated to women’s empowerment andyoung visual artists’ education. Yet again it was another

26 Essayaudience. “We need to open up,” says Moataz, again,and nods in affirmation.There has been a noticeable trend in Cairo over thepast few years of new spaces and projects that seem tosee more possibilities, with horizons that open widerthan before. There seems to be more ‘inter-disciplinary’accompanying these more daring ideas.. This mightoften, but not always, be related to the revolution in2011 and the boost of energy and creativity it entailed– the sudden awareness of the right to freedom ofexpression, for example. But, lest this should evolve intothe often heard discussion of ‘before’ and ‘after’, it is thequestion of the local audience that might be especiallyinteresting for a place like Darb 1718 and other spacesthat are located, well, not even in the periphery, butsimply outside of Downtown, to consider.Downtown is where things happen, still, and Downtownbrims with an energy that keeps attracting and holdingup crowds. A usual, Thursday night sees about threedifferent exhibition openings, film screenings and theodd concert happen, which can still be covered easilysince most of it takes place in Downtown. Eventhopping is something very common on these nightsand whole crowds move from one place to the other, afew streets down, like crabs on the beach.There are traceable decentralizing efforts and alsonumerous other attempts to establish art and cultureplaces outside Downtown that still also target the veryclosed ‘Downtown’ community. However, for the usualaudience based there, the idea of going a few stops bymetro still seems a lot of a hassle apparently, especiallywhen there is an opening in the gallery around thecorner. The dream of an open space for art and artistsfaces the very tangible challenge that they first have tobe brought to Darb 1718 And – Darb 1718 is difficultto ‘box’. Since they explicitly invite ‘everyone’ in aneffort to avoid elitism and offer such a huge variety ofevents and projects, Darb 1718’s profile remains a littlehazy for some.Projects like “Mashrou3 Hagar: Art Empowers” helpedin defining Darb 1718’s position and orientation, whichmakes it a lot easier for an audience to get a grasp onthe place. Surely by choice more of a cultural centerthan a gallery and has a specific interest in art that dealswith social issues. This adds to its unique and intriguingcharacter and makes it something that cannot easilybe found elsewhere. “You know, the recent events andprojects have seen thousands of people passing through,”says May, managing to sound only a tiny bit proud. Butto set up the long term projects the team is working onright now, and to pull off a program like we have seenover the last few months at the same time, is somethingthey certainly can be proud of. People have started tonotice that there is something happening at Darb 1718.And they come. “And if you come once it’s easy to comeagain,” says Reem, and her eyes shine bright blue whileshe makes sure that my voice recorder is functioning sonothing is lost.Without question there are still things to work on –theexhibitions, maybe? I have seen a few. Some of themcould have been given more thought, some weren’tcompletely convincing. But then I have seen fantasticand highly unsettling works that deserved a biggeraudience than the one they attracted –hopefully thiswill come soon. It is a huge challenge to build up aplace like this from scratch. But as has been said before,“things develop” and right now developments have beenspeeding up immensely.Beyond and besides the exchange with places andpeople outside Egypt, the place has an equal interestin collaborations with other art spaces in Cairo. But,to partner up with the established Downtown placesin order to target a greater number of people generallyinterested in art itself is only one aspect. Mutualpartnerships, they believe, would likewise allow othersto reach out to different communities via Darb 1718.So far the crowd at is different for every event. And this,of course, is also an opportunity.When asked about future plans, Reem, who is alreadyplotting another big project to carry out at a later time,waves at Moataz. The plans are ambitious. To supportthe idea of the place we need a platform and meetingpoint hence a cafe will be built. The artist residency iscurrently being completed and Moataz dreams about atheater space that looks like an arena. Darb 1718 has agreat interest in art in public space and they definitelyalso want to expand out of Cairo. The communityprojects in the immediate surrounding will be developedfurther, but future projects imply local, regional andinternational involvement.

Essay27The tea in our cups has been finished for a while, thepower is still not back and the peaceful atmospheremakes it a little difficult to think of leaving. But whereGoethe already failed to make the moment lingereveryone has to go back to different tasks that rangefrom preparing engagements to accounting. I ask mylast question and it dawdles a little in the air beforeMoataz carefully plucks it and looks at it from differentsides. Then he says: “Darb’s ideal audience – well, thatis actually really easy to answer. We want to work withand attract the curious people, the ones who want toknow and see and learn. That’s it, that’s all for now. Andthat is already a lot.”About the writerSara-Duana Meyer is a curator, writer, literary scholar andcultural producer currently based between Munich, Germanyand Cairo, Egypt.She has taught literature, cultural theory and visual studiesat several universities in Germany and India, and has beenconducting workshops on various topics. Sara-Duana hasworked for and with several cultural institutions and festivalsin Europe and the MENA region, most recently a theater festivalin Kurdistan/Iraq. Among others she conceived and curated aninterdisciplinary festival on freedom of expression in Munichand Cairo in 2011. She is intrigued by interdisciplinaryapproaches and fascinated by the oscillation of the inbetween.More specifically her work and research interests include art ofresistance and art in public space, urbanism and urban culture,global city literature, postcolonialism, gender studies and visualculture. She is a member of the Arts Rights Justice network andArtistic Director of Spring Lessons, an initiative for socio-culturalprojects and platform for artistic research which she co-foundedin 2011.