This talk will examine the nuances of art production within a particular moment in Egypt’s political and cultural history. It is the result of the fieldwork conducted by Ms. Rounwah A. Bseiso, a final-year PhD candidate at SOAS, and currently an adjunct faculty member in Kuwait. Q&A and open discussion will follow the presentation.

Prominent understandings of art in the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution focused largely on the political efficacy, form, and content of the image. Bseiso adopted an alternative approach and sought to understand how the meaning and role of art was being discussed and renegotiated in the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution.
This talk undertakes a critical interrogation of revolutionary art in Egypt in and following the 2011 revolution, understood as a historical process and a period of liminal time characterized by “in-betweeness” in which the normative order is momentarily suspended, and essentially turned upside down to give space for a new order, new narratives, and new ideas to emerge.

Rounwah Adly Riyadh Bseiso is a final-year PhD candidate at the Centre for Media Studies at the University of London-School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)