Last January, Hanfaninha debuted as Cairo’s youngest studio gallery, opening an outlet for young talents who have long struggled for exhibiting their work in any of the city’s established showrooms. With a superb location in Zamalek and a passion for their craft, three friends fresh out of college quickly carved their place in Cairo’s young hip art scene.
Between jewelry and paintings, charity exhibitions, fashion and photography, this past year has definitely been an eventful one for the trio; but as in any new business, the beginning wasn’t a smooth sail. Fifty-three artists, 12 exhibitions and a whole lot of art punctuate this gallery’s first year, amid plenty of bureaucracy and the sporadic moments of demotivation.
Last Saturday, the founders celebrated their gallery’s one year anniversary with displays of art, jewelry, music and cupcakes.
Qasr El-Nil St.
Inspired by one of downtown’s iconic streets, Qasr El-Nil, 11 artists presented their take on the city’s busiest avenue. Some managed to capture its essence, touching on the layers, the chaos, the old, the new and the inevitable architectural deterioration. Others, however, didn’t live up to the powerful theme; they were either trapped in clichés or failed to execute what one presumes was a solid, fresh idea.
Arguably the best collection on display is the series “25 seconds in Qasr El-Nil by Sarah Rafea. After finding her inspiration in a dark room in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Rafea realizes the effect of movement and time in her current Cairo collection.
The suite consists of five frames of close-up stills, all centering on Talaat Harb Square. Each composition is made up of multiple layers shot at 25 second intervals, the end result being a blurred scene of the street, with cars overriding pedestrians and buses running over smaller rundown cars.
The series left me glued, as I mused the artist s excellent technique. One often wonders about the city’s unspoken rules of traffic; this artist wonders whether there’s purposeful movement amid the street’s chaos.
Another commendable effort by an exhibiting photographer is the works of Coucla Refaat whose one piece showed a spectacular view of Talaat Harb Square. Titled “Fein El-Arnab (Where is the Bunny?), the first piece the viewer lays eyes on upon entering the gallery space is an eye grabber – literally.
Viewers are encouraged to pick up one of two magnifying glasses hanging to the photograph’s left-hand side to search for the man-bunny who is posing among the pedestrians.
Why the bunny? “Well, I thought about the bunny then I thought about a LE 1 million prize, she said.
It took me a while to find the bunny. Between the shabby buildings and deadlocked traffic, it’s become more and more difficult to recognize the city’s hidden gems which remain reserved for the older generations, or are often forgotten altogether.
On a similar train of thought, Omar Amin displays the gridlocked street with a few dozen toy cars glued to a canvas. The main street is made up of old rugged cars, the entry to which is blocked to the new cars.
To the artist, what is keeping this generation from joining the ranks of the old is more than just a traffic jam; it’s drugs, sexual frustration and unused knowledge, signified by a pack of rolling paper, a condom and a broken pencil.
The question this raises is are we all really meant to drive in the same direction, or is the jam a cue for a detour?
While Amira Mehrez explores the deterioration of downtown’s architecture in a clever yet comic digital installation, Maie El-Sabi refashions the ubiquitous street ahwa chairs with digital prints on its padded seats, in a colorful arrangement that could have benefited from a more elaborate display, a shortcoming that highlights a possible limitation for the gallery space.
Tasneem El-Meshad’s single mixed media piece stands out as an original portrayal of the layers that make up the street.
On the other hand, a joint effort between Hala El-Sharouny and Bassem Samir represents an admirable idea gone bad.
What the duo initially intended to accomplish was to focus on the footsteps of the pedestrians and use them as the storyteller. The final creation however was more suited to a magazine ad than an art exhibit.
Regular Egyptian feet were replaced with fashionable stilettos, made worse with a picture of models gazing-out presumably in a pensive state. Nothing of this collection spoke of Downtown.
More than just art
Exhibits of the growing trend of jewelry-making in Egypt are often confined to the creator’s living room or one of the high-end boutiques. Over the past year, Hanfaninha has offered its closed showroom to upcoming designers placing intricate necklaces around funky colored bottles or perching heaps of earrings over old books, for a 25 percent charge from total sales.
For the first hour of Saturday evening, the room was packed with women gazing at jewelry by five up-and-coming designers: Mariam Roshdy, Marwa Afifi, Yasmine Mostafa, Nouran Shaarway and Jillan Zaher. Young fashionistas were spoilt for choice amid the stone-adorned collections in search for that one special piece that will light up their outfits.
While the jewelry pulled up the sales, the priceless music was a mood-setter.
Musicians were invited for an open jam session. Keeping it simple, part of the garden, located between the gazebo-like gallery and the indoor studio, was covered with thin wooden sheets functioning as a stage. In duets or groups, musicians took the stage for a few songs each.
Without any sound aids, at first, it was hard to grab the audience’s attention. But the beat instantly picked up when guitarist Abdel-Rahman Hussein and vocalist Mariam Ali took the stage for a few powerful yet somber songs.
With mesmerizing vocals and palpable onstage chemistry, the duo went on for 20 minutes, interrupted only by the applause.
Taking the stage for both original and cover songs were the Strings, belting out hits by Adam Green and Bob Dylan and a few original numbers reminiscent of British rock classics.
Former rock band Kravin member Tarek Reda reunited with the band’s singer Shady Ahmed for an improvised session, tuning to Ismail Gad’s keyboard. Other artists included Ahmed Nawara and Nadah El-Shazly.
We will be seeing more of them and others at Hanfaninha, because to the dynamic trio, it’s no longer just about making art.
Hanfaninha’s First Anniversary exhibit concludes on January 30. Tel: 012 344 2114, 012 348 4176.
