The residency for artists and creatives Caravan: Thinking with Alexandria, conceived and realised by UNIDEE Residency Programs of Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto (Biella, Italy) and curated by Sarah Rifky and Edwin Nasr, was part of the European project Alexandria: (re)activating common urban imaginaries, which proposed a fresh look at the many challenges facing the arts and heritage sectors, through the symbolic and historical prism of the city of Alexandria in Egypt and its influences on urban development in the Mediterranean and beyond.
From over 600 applications received for the open call, sixteen artists and creatives were selected to partake in the nomadic residency programme across Europe and Egypt from February to July 2022.
The first phase began in February in Biella, where the group had the opportunity to start tackling the first themes and generate the first debates related to the creation, culture, heritage and development of the modern Mediterranean and European metropolis in relation to the influences of Alexandria. Afterwards, the artists travelled to Alexandria and then, divided into groups, they engaged with the cities of Athens, Brussels, Marseille and Nicosia.
Within the ‘Caravan’ programme, the actors of the different experiences were not only the sixteen internationally selected artists, but also the local organisations of the partner cities and the five social entrepreneurs, one for each residency. The social entrepreneurs were the figures with the task of guiding the residents along this path and putting them in contact with the social fabric of reference.
The artists, in dialogue with the curators of the residency, the social entrepreneurs (the professionals who, for each city, curated the programme of visits and meetings) and a series of international experts, produced a series of final works that were presented for the first time in Biella and will then travel between Marseille, Aarhus and Alexandria.
Through films, sound installations, printed material, sculptural works, readings and public discussions, the artists reflected on a range of topics, including meditations on the violence of the landscape, archaeology and imagination, forced displacement and ecological disaster.
Through this film, we recount the research process of the Caravan residency.
Participants:
Islam Shabana
Neja Tomsic
Zeynep Kaserci
Chiara Cartuccia
Onur Çimen
Sara Fakhry Ismail
Post Disaster
virgil b/g taylor
Lodovica Guarnieri
George Moraitis
Mark Lotfy
Mahmoud El Safadi
Stella Ioannidou
Omnia Sabry
Latent Community
Nina Kurtela
Social Enterpreneurs:
Sarah Bahgat (Alexandria)
Alexandre Field (Marseille)
Pauline de la Boulaye (Brussels)
Michalis Christou and Demetra Ignatiou (Nicosia)
Electra Karatza (Athens)
In collaboration with the Palais des Beaux-Arts ‘BOZAR’ (Brussels, Belgium), the Museum of the Civilisations of Europe and the Mediterranean ‘MUCEM’ (Marseille, France), the Onassis Stegi (Athens, Greece) and the Undo Point Contemporary Art Centre (Nicosia, Cyprus). And associated partners in Egypt: the French Institute of Alexandria (Egypt) and CLUSTER (Egypt).
