Cairo Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Cairo, Egypt
Residential Fellow
Arts & Culture Program leader
2015 - 2016


More info on the CILAS website.

Open Canvas

This course investigated alternative forms of knowledge through the experience of drawing and reading in an attempt to explore and re-define body-mind relations. Participants engaged in the act of drawing as a way to bridge body and mind. As they learned how to draw, they observed and evaluated not only the unfolding outcome on paper but also reflected upon a process of acquiring new forms of (body) knowledge. Accompanying theoretical texts and discussions further facilitated a process of self discovery by reflecting upon habitual and specific means of embracing knowledge. How do we learn? How do we know what we don’t know? Do you want to describe, explore, understand, discover or change something?

Selected Readings:

Kathy Acker
The Language of the Body

Thomas Nagel
What is it like to be a bat?

Jacques Rancière
The Emancipated Spectator

New Eyes, Old City

This course analysed the social fabric of Cairo and examined our relationship to the city from a personal perspective. The ambition of this course was to visually explore our everyday world, to think about what is visible and what is hidden in our environment. Our everyday world is made up of objects in urban life, which we navigate in our daily routines. The simple act of taking a photograph can open up a discourse on society and reveal our personal position within a culture. Does the everyday provide a platform for conformity, or is it a place where conformity is resisted? How do we daily negotiate our roles in a social system?

Selected Readings:

Farha Ghana
Live and Die Like a Man

bell hooks
The Oppositional Gaze

Erving Goffman
Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life

Mai Saad

Mireille El Magrissy