Why Egypt is suddenly on the global art world’s radar

There are a few moments in my life that I can call cultural resets. One of the most memorable was when, on a hot summer morning in May 2023, I encountered Egyptian artist Maha Maamoun’s work for the first time. Fresh out of a gruelling degree in Toronto, I had fled to Manhattan to visit the museums. At The Met, tucked into gallery 914, was Maamoun’s eight-minute video “2026” (2010), alongside her photographic series “Domestic Tourism I” (2005). It dawned on me that Egypt is a tourist spectacle, even for those of us who grew up there.
 
In the video, Maamoun recreates a scenario from Chris Marker’s 1962 film La Jetée, a story about a man journeying back in time in post-apocalyptic Paris. In Maamoun’s version, an actor delivers an excerpt from Mahmoud Osman’s science-fiction novel, The Revolution of 2053: The Beginning (2007). The text describes a night by the pyramids on a sanitised Giza Plateau with nothing in sight but the Grand Egyptian Museum (Gem). Initially proposed in 1992 and later formalised through an international design competition in 2002, the Gem was still under construction when Maamoun conceived “2026”. In the piece, the actor describes scenes of great wealth and food alongside images of superbly dressed expats and tourists dining leisurely. The scene is abruptly juxtaposed with deprivation, as starving children receive aid from an armoured car. I remember feeling uneasy after those eight minutes; I felt the hollowness of the museum’s spectacle on a visceral level.