30r364 boek.qxd:awards book 11 - Prince Claus Fund

Invisible PresenceCairo’s Mashrabia Gallery conceived ‘Invisible Presence’ as a way ofopening up public perceptions of the human body, a subject seldomexamined in Egyptian discourse. Work by 25 contemporary Egyptianartists will be exhibited in the open space of Al-Azhar Park, along withrelated local literature to attract a wider audience and debates to encourageactive involvement. Among the artists’ presentations, Doa Aly exposessocial body codes and the manipulation of anatomy, physicality andpsychology through sports, dance, fashion and performance; AhmadAskalany examines cultural enslavement, corruption of the self and lossof humanity; Adel El Siwi explores dualism, dichotomy and iconographyin the perception of faces; Malak Helmy and Mahmoud Khaled focuson self-portrayal and the public eye, while Hany Rashed suggests cock -roach-human similarities in life’s crowded isolation. The Prince ClausFund is supporting this innovative public interrogation of the body inthe Egyptian context, in line with the Fund’s themes of Creating Spacesof Freedom, and Culture and the Human Body.InvisiblePresence121Culture and the Human Body