Culture Resource is pleased to announce the grantees of the third round of Wijhat 2020. The program received 39 applications for this round, from Algeria, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen. Of these, 25 were for international travels while 9 were for regional travels. The Jury selected 7 grantees, 5 for international travels and 2 for regional travels.
Grantees
Ahmed Hossameldin, Egypt / story illustrator and graphic designer
Route: Egypt → Switzerland
Travel Plan: Ahmed will display his works at the Fumetto Comic Festival and lead a discussion circle on the comics scene in Egypt and the Arab region in the post-Arab Spring era. This opportunity gives him the chance to interact with the comics scene in Switzerland and find common ground with at least one artist whom he could invite to the next edition of Egypt Comix Week. The festival will also feature a group exhibit of works by Egyptian story illustrators.
Engy Mohsen, Egypt / visual artist
Route: Egypt → U.S.
Travel Plan: Engy will take part in the Art Omi residency in New York where she will conceptualize and produce an artistic work and network with other visual arts specialists, it will also help her evolve her artistic practices through exchanging new ideas with other resident artists and displaying her work to new audiences.
Diana Al Sweity, Palestine / actress and puppeteer
Route: Palestine → Belgium
Travel Plan: Diana and the Fridge Theater troupe will join Les Royales Marionnettes theatre company in Belgium to create a joint production called “La Petite Fille aux Allumettes” In addition to helping the Fridge company hone their skills, this collaboration will give them an opportunity to stage their work at an international level and to exchange theatrical expertise with artists from different countries.
Bahaa Al Jomaa, Palestine / musical trainer
Route: Lebanon → Egypt
Travel Plan: Bahaa will receive training with the Egyptian nay player Mohammed Antar. He will also ship giant cane reeds from Lebanon to Egypt in order to test the quality of this material in the manufacture of musical instruments, as this grant also gives Bahaa the opportunity to learn the art of reed flute manufacture in an applied way with the nay-maker Hussein Darwish.
Soukaina Joual, Morocco / visual artist
Route: Morocco → U.S.
Travel Plan: Soukaina will take part in an Art Omi residency in New York, where she will conceptualize and produce an artistic work in the framework of the residency’s program. In the process she will expand her artistic practices which she has developed over the years while studying at the National Institute for Fine Arts in Tetouan and participating in numerous art exhibitions in Morocco and abroad.
Yasmine Abd El-Aziz Sedeik, Egypt / visual plastic artist
Route: Egypt → Morocco
Travel Plan: Yasmine will take part in the third edition of Madrassa, an intensive program of residencies, meetings and trainings designed for emerging curators. Organized by l’Atelier de l’Observatoire, the program will be carried out in the Collective Museum in Casablanca. This year’s theme will focus on museum and archive coordination and participants will discuss ideas related to self-directed learning and organization as an avenue to discovering new and different ways of individual and collective artistic curation. The participants will be working collaboratively in the company of a group of professional curators who will oversee the proposed joint projects that will be carried out later.
Younes Baba-Ali, Morocco / audiovisual artist
Route: Morocco → U.S.
Travel Plan: Younes will participate in the three-month Pioneer Works residency program in New York in order to produce an interdisciplinary art exhibit in which art, technology and cultural diversity intersect. The exhibit’s theme will be the informal economy, a subject that has been the focus of Younes’s recent work which also offers a new perspective on identity, migration and survival strategies.
Jury Members
Dounia BENSLIMANE, Morocco/ Independent cultural operator;
Karima Mansour, Egypt/ Performer, Choreographer, Teacher, Founder and Artistic Director of MAAT|CCDC;
Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, Palestine/ Musician and founder of the independent platform for Arabic music Eka3.
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.
