Windows Project is a collaborative video workshop and video exhibition conducted by Aras Ozgun during his residency at Performance and Visual Arts Department of American University in Cairo in March 2010. 15 students, film makers, artists, academics (with or without prior experience in video art) participated to the workshop and collaboratively developed the exhibition with the works they produced. The exhibition opened at the Rooftop Studios of Townhouse Gallery on March 25th, 2010.

Artists involved: Ahmed El Gendy, Amira Hanafi, Amran Frey, Angela Harutyunyan, Aras Ozgun, Yasmine Shash, Belle Gironda, Corey Sattler, Hani Sami Lotfi Naguib, Heba Amin, Mariam Mekiwi, Maya Asfour, Mohammed Alaa, Mohammed El-Assyouti, Nagham Osman, and Nork Zakarian.

More info here: http://www.pyromedia.org/windows_project/

Below is my video for the project:

City of Desire (do I look like a slut?) from Heba Amin on Vimeo.

The City of Desire lingers behind the windows of Cairo’s downtown lingerie shops exposing the tension between the public and private realm. Temptation is trapped behind glass as sexually suggestive mannequins express their desires to the city’s inhabitants.

The house of Zeinab Khatun
Built in 1468, with later additions in 1713, restored in 1996.

I think more along the lines of “lethargic and defeated”. After having been away for so long and coming back, I find extremely alarming the sense of resignation amongst people in this city. People seem to have given up.

   http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/world/middleeast/18egypt.html

Read my article “Fragmented City: Visualizing the City-Psyche Relationship of Cairo” included in this Spring’s online edition. The article is a condensed version of my thesis research.

Fragmented City photo

Abstract: Fragmented City seeks to address the urban landscape of Cairo and its emotional impact on its inhabitants. The visual characteristics of the city display the deterioration of urban life where masses of abandoned and haphazard structures attest to the government’s laissez-faire attitude in dealing with urban planning. As inhabitable structures take up space and resources, inhabitants of the city begin to clash, rather than coexist with their built environment.

I have explored visual re-interpretations of fragments of the city by translating and relocating visual information through various media. These visual manifestations attempt to portray an emotional experience and perspective of the current political and social climate of the region. I am working from the hypothesis that Cairo’s urban landscape negatively impacts the psyche and plays a significant role in influencing behavior. My visual explorations move from photography, to drawing, to web based environments, installation and projection work. By immersing the viewer in a particular environment, each visual displacement constitutes a re-assessment of scale and visual engagement intended to elicit sensations comparable to those experienced in physical space.

The 2009 Spring edition of the Journal of the New Media Caucus focuses on the theme “Foreignness and Translation in New Media“. Edited by Pat Badani, “The collected essays in this edition provide a thought-provoking expansion on the themes of “foreignness” and “translation”, subjects habitually explored through the lens of identity. The edition expands the discourse to examine different kinds of identifications, translations and geographies – opening up personal, cultural, physical and conceptual definitions. The essays explore the ways evolving technologies are being used by cultural practitioners to re-interpret and incorporate these notions.”

“Artist Heba Amin Explores Her Egyptian Heritage in America”
http://www.america.gov/st/diversity-english/2008/October/20081003125506maduobbA4.618472e-02.html?CP.rss=true

The article also debuted in America.gov’s publication, “Being Muslim in America“. Read the article “Young Muslims Make Their Mark: Artist Heba Amin“.

A glum outlook on the future of a city.

http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12202321

“This is not like London or New York, or even Tehran, another car-clogged Middle Eastern capital. It is literally like living day in and day out with a lawn mower running next to your head, according to scientists with the National Research Center. They spent five years studying noise levels across the city and concluded in a report issued this year that the average noise from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. is 85 decibels, a bit louder than a freight train 15 feet away, said Mustafa el Sayyid, an engineer who helped carry out the study.”

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/14/africa/14cairo.php