Sameer Farooq /

Something stolen, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Blue

In collaboration with Mirjam Linschooten
Installation and book
www.museumoffoundobjects.com

A project based on the 54 items that were stolen or damaged from the Egyptian Museum during the revolution of 2011. By asking residents of greater Cairo: “What object from your home would you like to see displayed in the Egyptian Museum?”, 54 new objects were proposed to replace the 54 which had been looted. The result was an installation in the Ard El Lewa neighborhood of Cairo and series of photographs and stories compiled in a bookwork. To borrow from theorist Ariella Azoulay, our response was to build a “potential history” inviting residents to develop a new archive, extracting themselves from the official record and imagining a different future. By re-proposing a material record of the present, our archive became a community-based process of participation and knowledge production.

A pop-up photo studio installed in the project space of Artellewa art space in greater Cairo. We worked with a local calligrapher to make announcement posters welcoming residents to bring us objects. Meanwhile, there was a calm before the storm at the Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square before the anti-Morsi protests. Reports indicated that the June 30th (2013) protests was possibly the largest gathering of people in the history of humankind. For a month, we photographed and interviewed people around the objects that were brought to us. No. 37: Fowl (obsessed with his own image) No. 29: Paintings No. 40: Headscarf No. 47: Pyramidal Form Publication cover Publication interior showing No. 47: Paintings and No. 48: Bread The publication interior showing No. 49: Computer and an image of June 30, 2013 at Tahrir. Publication back matter/object descriptions Exhibition view at Arc of Alchemy, Sol Koffler Gallery, Providence, RI, USA., 2013. Exhibition view at Arc of Alchemy, Sol Koffler Gallery, Providence, RI, USA., 2013.