European Cultural Foundation

Report by Abdalla Daif, artist and writer
Co-founder of Gudran Association for Art and Development (www.gudran.com)

The first question that came on my mind is what I would do, as an artist going to that community, with all those artists gathered in that meeting. A question that takes many forms, beginning with how to say “goodmorning“, including watching the other members of the group working in front of their computers, ending with the observation of the people from Formigine (small city in Italy, the first place of our meeting).

About me, I liked my position as an observer of other artists moving towards the audience, comparing our methodology in Gudran Association to that of the other groups, dealing with considerably different community from the one in Egypt.
A part the discussions with my friend Bilal Khbeiz about the Israeli-Lebanese and the Lebanese-Lebanese conflicts, my daily joy was refreshed by Susana’s persistence, Rachel’s vividity and Pinar’s understanding, finding other ways of being in contact with the community, asking the community about their ability to allow the children - who worked with my colleague Sameh El Halawani and me - to draw on walls of their houses. We chose a big part of temporary wooden fence so that a group of children could express themselves by drawing and painting.
For me it is quite an attempt to explore that iron frame of uniqueness of that small town. So, the biggest challenge is how to create an intimacy between the artist and the community through an artistic process.

While Sameh is monitoring the workshop, I am trying to get people walking in the street, listening to everyone’s opinion and, after discussing with the other artists the nature of our work as a group, trying to involve the community in the artistic process.

That had a tangible effect on us as a group. Actually through the project Atlante Mediterraneo, we are able to know closely other groups active around the Mediterranean, with different experiences and practices of working in communities. The discussions and sharing of small ideas and tasks contribute a lot to exchange experiences as a group of artists with different cultural backgrounds.

I can say that this kind of projects have a very important approach for the dialogue between these participating communities and group of artists and students. Thanks to our meetings and to the activities around the six mediterranean cities where Atlante Mediterraneo works in.

Worshops in Formigine (Italy) and El Max/Alexandria (Egypt)