Urgent Thoughts

We announce «Urgent Thoughts», a series of ongoing meetings organised in collaboration with ASCII program, scheduled to take place every other Saturday starting in July 2025. The program offers a space for the presentation and simplified exploration of a theoretical idea that may hold significance for its connection to the creative practices of young artists in Egypt today.

The series focuses on raising questions and fostering collective discussions around concepts that probe the relationship between knowledge and practice. It examines connections that might expand both artistic and learning experiences. Urgent Thoughts also offers brief introductions to experimental strategies for learning beyond the framework of the school or teacher, while reflecting on the foundations of a cultural structure that supports the artist as an active and influential figure in contemporary society


We announce the first session of “Urgent Thoughts” titled “Statement in Drawing”

This session invites reflection on drawing as a medium traditionally associated with documentation processes, its historical connection to scientific research, intellectual inquiry, and the presentation of knowledge in its various forms. It also explores drawing’s role as a key inspiration for the imagination of the contemporary creator.

– Dossier – Meeting 5 with Ganzeer

Ganzeer takes us on a journey through his experiences in art and design, during which he showcases examples of his work that intersect across illustration, poster and print design, graffiti, and multidisciplinary art projects. He also shares his collaborative experiences with various artists and groups, spanning the street, galleries, and platforms. The journey moves through forms of production that vary in their conditions and circles. Ganzeer discusses the diversity of his paths, the evolution of his ideas, and the transformations of recent years, along with the changes in modes of production that accompanied them.

Join us in meeting 5 with Ganzeer on Sunday, 18th of May 2025, at 7 PM in Medrar.

Medrar, 10 Gamal Eldin Abo ElMahsen, 8th floor, Garden City, Cairo.


– Dossier – Meeting 4 with Yasmine El Meleegy

May be an illustration of ‎text that says '‎Dosgjer ေ်မိုနည်ချါက် لقاء مساء المليجی يأسمین مسع حوار Y الساعة ٢٠٢٥ مأیو ١٢ الأثنين A discussion with Yasmine El Meleegy Monday, 12th of May 2025, 7 PM Medrar, هتا F+ -YEARS CARS القاهرة ,سیتی' 10 Ganal Eldin Abo ElMahsen, 8th floor, Garden city, cairo. جاردن الثامن، ،المحسن الدور ابو الدین جمال ١٠ ،مدرار‎'‎

The upcoming event “Dossier” features a discussion with artist Yasmine El Meleegy, reflecting on artistic practice in relation to modes of production, shifting market conditions, and the questions that arise from working under current transformations. The discussion draws on personal experience and institutional frameworks, exploring the tensions and possibilities that emerge from this intersection.

Join us on Monday, 12th of May 2025, at 7 PM in Medrar.

Medrar, 10 Gamal Eldin Abo ElMahsen, 8th floor, Garden City, Cairo.

“The City” – Open Studio by Mohamed Abo Gabal

We announce “The City” is an ongoing research project by Mohamed Abo Gabal, initiated in 2024, reflecting on how cities across the Middle East shift, expand, and contract under the pressure of political, economic, and institutional decisions. The work follows the city not as a fixed place, but as a space in flux, where transformation happens gradually or abruptly, deliberately or unintentionally. These shifts are often shaped by agendas that remain unclear or unacknowledged.

The project approaches urban space as a site where memory, power, and belonging are constantly negotiated. Who remains, what is removed, and how the past is referenced or erased are questions that run throughout the work. These decisions often bypass those most familiar with the space—residents, workers, and others whose presence rarely enters official narratives. It takes shape through research, movement, and close observation. It doesn’t aim to capture a singular image of urban life, but instead follows what is being rearranged, redefined, or slowly withdrawn. Small details such as altered building facades, renamed streets, or empty lots become entry points into broader conversations about space, displacement, and access.

Opening Sunday, 27th of April, at 6 PM, and runs until Tuesday, the 29th of April, from 4 to 9 PM 

In parallel of the open studio, “Grey Is The New Green” a discussion by Fares Zaitoon on Sunday, 27th of April, at 7 PM

and “Counter Narrative to the Urban Transformations of Cairo: a discussion by Ahmed Zaazaa on Monday, 28th of April, at 8 PM.

Address: Medrar, 10 Gamal Eldin Abo ElMahsen, 8th floor, Garden City, Cairo.

Walima: The Cosmology of Art and Food

We announce “Walima: The Cosmology of Art and Food”

“Walima” presents a series of events, discussions, performances, and workshops that explore the relationship between artistic practices and food, considering its cultural significance, social connections, and its role as a creative practice. Approaching Cooking as an art form, creating a space for experimentation where food and art function as cultural and social tools.

“To my father, my inspiration and the first one to introduce me to the magic of the kitchen. He is my first teacher in the culinary arts and the greatest person with whom I’ve shared moments of food, as we explored many restaurants together. A salute to my father, the unsung hero who has always been, and still is, the most interesting and inspiring man in my life” Mohamed Abo Gabal – Curator of Walima program


Haneen’s Kitchen – Hummus Workshop

The workshop traces the journey of hummus from its origins in Gaza to its presence in Palestinian cuisine today, shaped by historical transformations and trade routes such as the Via Maris. It considers cooking as a practice entangled with identity, where hummus remains an assertion of continuity amid displacement and oppression. Through a critical engagement with culinary traditions as both sites of continuity and rupture, the session reflects on the ways food holds histories of survival, adaptation, and resistance.

Workshop date: Saturday, 8th of March, 2025 – from 9:00 – 10:30 PM

Fee: 100 EGP


The Art & Engineering of Pasta, a talk by Monia Gobba

Join us for a visual and audio-driven exploration of Egypt’s pasta history. Through archival stories, factory floorplans, engineering drawings, and recorded voices, we’ll uncover the journey of Nani Pasta Factory, founded in 1953. Discover how local innovators reverse-engineered pasta machines to make mass production possible and see how packaging evolved to protect and showcase different pasta shapes. This is a look at the intersection of industry, design, and tradition—told through the machines, materials, and people who shaped it.

About Monia Gobba: A graphic designer and researcher that works with objects and documents of different disciplines and people and places to tell stories through publications, workshops and research initiatives.

Join us on Tuesday, 11th of March 2025, at 9 PM in Medrar.


Food & Resistance, a talk by Lujain Khairy

Join Lujain Khairy, a researcher in social studies and political anthropology, for a lecture on the intersection of food and resistance. The talk explores how daily cooking practices and food traditions contribute to public action and political movements. Through comparisons between Egyptian and Tunisian contexts, Lujain examines how food shapes political engagement and resistance, reflecting on its role in social and political change.

Join us on Saturday, 15th of March 2025, at 9 PM in Medrar.


Family Recipes: Cooking Memory and Writing Home in Flour and Grandmother’s Ink

Join us for an interactive talk where Farah Hallaba engages in conversation with Melanie Partamian about her family’s recipe books—their cultural backgrounds, entanglements, and the stories they carry.

An exploration of familial recipes through an anthropological lens, this discussion weaves between Melanie’s grandmothers’ ingredients and the social and political absences and presence(s) within these handwritten archives. And how notes on the margins, not related to food, reflect important aspects of the author’s life. Thinking of the cookbook as a suitcase, allows us to also engage with gender in migratory experience such as Melanie’s family’s.

Next Monday, 17th of March 2025, at 9 PM in Medrar.


Lentil Narrative: Tracing Food in Literature Talk by Afraa Ahmed & Aziz Morfeq

A talk by Afra Ahmed and Aziz Marfaq exploring traditional cuisines and dietary practices through literary and visual materials, focusing on Yemeni food with its authenticities and cultural influences. The discussion centers on the manuscript Sulafat Al-Adas, a nearly 300-year-old comedic, multi-styled poetic diwan. The verses in this manuscript contain references to everyday life, including dishes, food utensils, and ingredients, which the author employs as literary metaphors. Through examining these references as a case study, the talk explores how Yemeni eating habits and cultural practices are reflected and understood through literature.

Join us on Thursday, 27th of March 2025, at 9 PM in Medrar.

Dossier – meeting 3 with Ahmed El Shaer

«Through bridging physical and virtual reality, I create an alternative environment that offers new ways of understanding social and political narratives that intersect with or challenge official and traditional ones. New media art practices, particularly video games as an art form, provide a space for expression and critical inquiry into subjects ranging from pure aesthetics to contemporary geopolitics.»

As part of the Dossier program, Ahmed El Shaer presents a selection of his projects that explore video games as an artistic medium and extended reality. The talk opens a space for discussion on these practices, tracing their intersections with artistic, social, and political concerns, as well as questions of production and reception in different contexts.

Join us on Wednesday, 12th of March 2025, at 9 PM in Medrar.

Medrar, 10 Gamal Eldin Abo ElMahsen, 8th floor, Garden City, Cairo.

Dossier -meeting 2 with Marwa Benhalim

The second event of the “Dossier” presents an artist talk with Marwa Benhalim, offering a closer look into her artistic practice and the concepts that drive her work. The discussion focuses on the intersections of her roles as both an artist and curator, and how this duality is reflected in her projects and different collaborations.

Join us on Thursday 27th of February 2025 at 7 PM in Medrar.

— Dossier —

As part of Medrar’s program in its twentieth year, Dossier presents a series of events, discussions, and talks addressing topics related to the local art scene, contemporary art in Egypt, independent institutions, and alternative practices.

The first event of “Dossier” is a discussion with Ismail Fayed as part of his research project on the history of contemporary art in Egypt from 2000 to 2022. The discussion will explore documentation and writing on contemporary Egyptian art, Medrar’s ongoing programs related to archiving, and the challenges surrounding critical discourse and accessibility.

Join us on Wednesday, 19th of February 2025, 7 PM at Medrar.

Medrar, 10 Gamal Eldin Abo ElMahsen, 8th floor, Garden City, Cairo.

Vanishing Traces: Reflections on the Digital Archive and the History of Contemporary Art – A discussion panel by the writer Ismail Fayed

Vanishing Traces: Reflections on the Digital Archive and the History of Contemporary Art. A discussion panel by the writer Ismail Fayed. 

As part of the public discussion program of the research project “Against All Odds: Towards a History of Contemporary Art in Egypt (2000-2022)”, the second event of the program comes in collaboration with Medrar for Contemporary Art to invite those interested and concerned with the history of contemporary visual art to discuss the role and meaning of the digital archive as a space for memory but also forgetting. The contemporary art scene emerged at the beginning of the millennium and was formed and engaged with a digital infrastructure of image and text that played a fundamental role in developing this scene and its practices, and this was also reflected in the ways in which these practices were received and disseminated, as well as remembered. It can be said that many of those involved in contemporary practices used digital means and tools in various ways, even if their practices were not concerned with specific digital mediums or with direct questions about digital media. Reliance on these digital mediums or structures has become self-evident and largely unquestioned. This was reflected in the methods of communication (starting with email and going on to social media) as well as the spaces for publishing and expression (electronic journalism, blogs, social media platforms, etc.) and this digital structure became an integral part of the presence of that scene and the ways of dealing with it despite the fragility of the digital medium and its seemingly inevitable disappearance. After more than twenty years of many institutions and spaces working in this scene and the “fading” and disappearance of many of those digital traces and their content, the question becomes what kind of archive can be imagined with that vanishing? What is the collective memory that can be saved or formed with this absence? And in the event that it is impossible to save that presence or this content, what kind of dialogue can we talk about as witnesses and agents? The discussion panel invites all those interested in the history of contemporary visual art to share their concerns, hopes, and aspirations and to think about an alternative archive or memory that goes beyond vanishing traces.

Join us on Thursday, November 21 1st, 2024, at 7 PM at Medrar

Address: Medrar, 10 Gamal Eldin Abo ElMahasen, Garden City, Cairo.

“Back to the Roots” Art Talk by artist Aïda Schweitzer

Join us on Sunday, November 17th, at 7 p.m. for an engaging art talk with artist Aïda Schweitzer at Medrar for Contemporary Art!

As the artist-in-residence at Out Of The Circle, Aïda Schweitzer will share her journey with textiles and her art research in Egypt. She delves into the rich heritage of Egyptian textile patterns and techniques, blending tradition with technology. Her project experiments with ancestral embroidery, integrating AI-generated visuals to create a new artistic language. This research opens a unique dialogue: will AI become a tool, a hybrid creative partner, or an independent entity in her process?

Since 2009, Aïda has exhibited widely across Europe, including at Nosbaum Reding Project Gallery and the Venice Biennale. Now, she brings her skills into an experimental laboratory, redefining textile art for contemporary audiences.

AIR supported by Kulturlx Arts Council Luxembourg

Address: Medrar, 10 Gamal Eldin Abo ElMahsen, Garden City, Cairo.
Note: The art talk will be held in English.

Photo: I am back on my land by Aïda Schweitzer (Deconstructed lines, an image of traditional Egyptian motifs reinterpreted by AI and the artist — 80×80 Embroideries on linen, 2024).

Artist talk with Photini Papahatzi

No photo description available.

Join us tomorrow for an artist talk with Photini Papahatzi at 7:00 PM, where she will share her experiences during her residency in Cairo. Photini explores her family’s roots in Egypt by mapping the traces they left during the 20th century. Her artistic practice incorporates photography, documentation, and narrative storytelling, addressing themes of migration, memory, identity, and the body.

The discussion will be conducted in English as part of the Anna Lindh Foundation’s ALFinMOTION Mobility program, supported by the European Union, in collaboration with the Sekoun Residency Program.

‏Address: Medrar, 10 Gamal Eldin Abo ElMahsen, Garden City, Cairo.

Photo courtesy of Photini Papahatzi’s personal archive.

“Where the banyan tree meets the nile,” a multimedia installation and artist talk by Roshan Ganu

We invite you to attend “Where The Banyan Tree Meets The Nile,” a Multimedia Installation and Artist Talk by our artist-in-residence, Roshan Ganu, on Thursday, 21st of December at 7 pm at Medrar for Contemporary Art.

Native to the Indian subcontinent, a Banyan Tree grows in the heart of Zamalek in Cairo. Its roots were carried to Egypt from India by Khedive Ismail in 1868. Originally from Goa, India, currently living in the United States, and now traveling in Egypt, the Banyan Tree forms a metaphor for immigrant people such as the artist, Roshan Ganu. She says, “When we carry our roots with us, how do we instill a sense of belonging in a new land? What happens when the Banyan Tree meets the River Nile?” Through immersive projection, sound, and darkness, Ganu welcomes the viewer into a place of narrative reflection and the feeling of being itinerant.

At the Artist Talk, Ganu will share her experiences being an immigrant person, addressing the circumstances of aloneness and longing this identity brings. Through her work she proposes a perspective, “Can narrative mythology and storytelling become an alternative way of building a sense of place and home around us when we are confronted by a new land?’