Culture Resource is pleased to announce the grantees of the second round of Wijhat 2023, a program that supports artists and cultural actors through travel grants that enable them to participate in artistic and cultural activities in the Arab region and abroad.
The Wijhat team received 93 applications for this round from Morocco, Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Qatar, Jordan, Syria, Algeria, Sudan, Iraq and Bahrain. Of these, 75 were for international travel, 15 for regional travel and 3 for both international and regional travels. The jury selected 10 grantees.
Grantees:
Bahgaga, Egypt / a women’s musical and singing band
Destination: Egypt → Lebanon
Itinerary: The Bahgaga Band will travel to Tripoli, Lebanon, to take part in the Maarad Music Festival, an independent cultural festival launched by the Rumman Center in collaboration with Beirut & Beyond in 2022 with the aim of showcasing local musical talent and attracting international bands to the city. Bahgaga is a female vocal and musical group, consisting of 5 singers/performers and 7 musicians, which seeks to revive the Egyptian art of comedy monologue presented through song. This will be the first time the band participated in an artistic residency program, as well as to perform live, in concert, in Tripoli. The experience will give them opportunities to network and research prospects for further performance opportunities in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Arab region.
Cairo Art Book Fair, Egypt / an annual art book exhibition
Destination: Cairo → Germany
Itinerary: The Cairo Art Book Fair team will travel to Germany to participate in Miss Read Art Book Fair, an event that brings together artists, independent publishers and groups from around the world specializing in print and graphic design techniques. Recent editions of the fair have focused on publishing practices that intersect with decolonization in practice and theory, according to the book fair’s organizers. Cairo Art Book Fair will be among the exhibitors in this year’s edition and will therefore have the opportunity to promote and distribute a curated selection of publications produced by independent artists, organizations and publishers in Cairo and nearby cities (in Tunisia, in particular). The team will also acquire a number of publications from other Miss Read exhibitors in order to display them in the next edition of the annual Cairo Art Book Fair in December.
Center of Dramatic and Scenic Arts of Nabeul, Tunisia / a professional theater production company
Destination: Tunisia → UK
Itinerary: Center of Dramatic and Scenic Arts will travel to London to participate in the Shubbak Festival. The largest contemporary Arab cultural festival in the UK, Shubbak takes place every two years and aims to attract new talents from abroad to join British-based artists in connecting local audiences and communities with the best output in contemporary Arab visual arts, film, music, theater, dance, literature and cultural debate. The theater company will present two performances of “Trouf: Scenes from 75 Years,” a play they produced during the Covid-19 pandemic and that they will now be able to present to a new and culturally diverse audience. The company will also conclude partnership agreements with other organizations present at the festival to produce joint theatrical works.
Dust Collective, Syria / a performance arts and movement laboratory
Destination: Netherlands → Jordan
Itinerary: Dust Collective will take part in the IDEA Festival organized by Studio 8 in Jordan. IDEA, or the International Dance Encounter Amman, is an independent multidisciplinary dance festival that aims to foster links between dance professionals in Jordan and abroad by supporting the production and presentation of the works of local emergent artists. IDEA is a platform for innovation, experimentation and the continual development of dance culture in Jordan and elsewhere. Dust Collective’s participation will take place in two stages. The first is a one-week artistic residency in Jordan in which the group will work on the performance, “Dust.” They will also attend open sessions with local artists, enabling them familiarize themselves with the performance arts and contemporary dance scene in Jordan. The second stage is the presentation of “Dust” for the first time in an Arab country.
Hala Asslan, Syria / PhD in architecture and expert in the preservation of ancient architectural and urban heritage
Destination: Syria →Australia
Itinerary: Hala will travel to Sydney, Australia, to participate in the ICOMOS 21st General Assembly and Scientific Symposium (ICOMOS GA2023). ICOMOS (the International Council on Monuments and Sites) is a global organization of cultural heritage professionals which serves as the principal advisory body on cultural heritage to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee and which convenes a general assembly and scientific symposium every three years in order to discuss various concerns regarding flexibility, responsibility, rights and relations. In this year’s seminar, Hala will read a paper on “The Role of Syrian Cultural Heritage in Building National Peace Through the Rehabilitation Project of the Old City of Aleppo.” The ancient city of Aleppo was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1986 and, in 2013, it was inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger due to the war. This participation offers Hala the opportunity to meet and engage with other international experts in her field in order to discuss and share expertise on the various aspects of heritage conservation.
Ibrahim ElSayed, Egypt / Assistant Professor, Department of English, Faculty of Literature, University of Fayoum
Destination: Egypt → United Kingdom
Itinerary: Ibrahim will travel to the UK to attend the International Literary Translation and Creative Writing Summer School, which is run by the British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT) at the University of East Anglia. The program brings together writers and translators from around the world for intensive training in the diverse skills and strategies involved in literary translation and creative writing. The BCLT offers a stimulating environment for translators to work on their creative projects and helps them develop their professional relationships with other translators and publishers around the world. Ibrahim will participate as an Arabic to English translator and he will also have the opportunity to promote his translation into English of the Mauritanian novel Al-Barrani.
Ismail Erahhali, Morocco / interdisciplinary artist
Destination: Morocco → France
Itinerary: Ismail will travel to France to attend the L’été du samovar (Samovar Summer), a festival of clowns, burlesque and eccentrics, in which he will present his clown show “Accordage.” Based on his graduation project at the National Circus School Shems in 2022, the performance includes a musical segment in which Ismail plays the guitar and sings well-known Western tunes, the lyrics of which have been translated into both of Morocco’s official languages, Arabic and Tamazight. Participating in this festival offers Ismail the opportunity to join the Samovar theater and training school in the autumn, enabling him to continue his studies and further hone his skills in the circus arts. He will be the first Arab performer to present a contemporary clown performance at the Samovar school in Paris.
Maqam Gaza, Palestine / classical Arabic music ensemble
Destination: Palestine → Jordan
Itinerary: The Gaza Maqam Ensemble will participate in the 37th edition of the Jerash Festival for Culture and Arts, in which they will present a concert in the main amphitheater of the ancient city of Jerash. The ensemble brings together a group of musicians united by their passion for classical Arabic music and their desire to present it in a distinctive and innovative way. The chance to perform in this year’s Jerash Festival for Culture and Arts is a major milestone for Gaza Maqam, as it will be the first time it performs outside Gaza. In addition to giving the ensemble the opportunity to get to know and share expertise with musicians from outside Gaza, this major cultural event is a unique platform for introducing the ensemble to new and diverse audiences.
Petra Serhal on behalf of the cast of “Or, when I slept for eighteen days and nights,” Lebanon/ a performance art installation.
Destination: Lebanon → France
Itinerary: Petra Serhal and Kinda Hassan will travel to France, in partnership with the Beirut Center for Art, to complete work on “Or, when I slept for eighteen days and nights,” a performance art installation, part of it was completed during an artistic residency at the Grasse Institute of Perfume in France. The performance treats the impact of crises, economic collapse and sociopolitical repression on the physiological state of the body. This artwork is part of Petra’s research project, “Eau de Toilette,” which she worked on in perfumery workshops in Grasse in 2022 and 2023. In the course of the residency, she will complete the project in collaboration with other participant artists and perfumers, after which she will present the piece in Beirut and then Marseille.
Tarek Elazhary, Egypt / music composer and oud player
Destination: Egypt → UK
Itinerary: Tarek will travel to the UK to take part in a performance tour with the British musician and composer Tamsin Elliott to launch their album “So Far We Have Come.” The tour will include performances at several festivals: the Shambala Festival, the FolkEast Festival, the Smugglers Festival, the Somerset Jazz Festival, the Priston Festival and the Creative Peaks Festival. This tour will help Tarek develop his cultural and artistic skills, and expand his familiarity with traditional British music and the properties it shares with its Egyptian counterpart, as well as to broaden his network of professional relations.
Jury:
Khaled Mattawa, Libya / poet, professor of English literature and creative writing at the University of Michigan, and a member of the Culture Resource General Assembly.
Nisreen Naffa, Palestine / Grants and Capacities Support Unit Manager of the A. M. Qattan Foundation’s Culture and Education Program.
Saima Samoud, Tunisia / professor at the Higher Institute Music in Tunis and expert in cultural industries and policies.
The Wijhat program aims to promote the arts and culture from the Arab region, both regionally and internationally, by supporting the regional or international travels of artists and cultural actors from this region so as to facilitate their participation in cultural events and activities that enable them to present their work to diverse audiences in wider regional and/or international contexts, to exchange knowledge and expertise with peers, to build their professional capacities or to develop an artistic project.
