"North and South" - An Aesthetic and Exploratory Vision in the Eyes of Egypt’s Youth
“North and South” draws on Egypt’s rich historical and cultural background. It attempts to link history, antiquities and arts in Egypt through a creative journey. This activity will focus on developing the participants' artistic skills. It will also enhance the spirit of teamwork, and reinforce a feeling of belonging, where the participants will develop a sense of pride of their rich and diverse culture.
The program targets 100 young Egyptians aged 18–34 years from both genders, from all over Egypt, to participate and to embark on a creative journey that will considerably broaden their perspective over Egypt’s cultural richness, and strengthen their creative abilities.
- Selected participants will be practitioners of one of the following five artistic forms:
- Painting.
- Writing (Essay, short story, diaries) in both colloquial Arabic and/or classical Arabic.
- Photography.
- Graphics (digital graphic design).
- Video Art.
Selected participants will travel on a 21-day journey. The Journey starts around the 20th of February 2015, in Alexandria, where the participants will spend 3 days. They will be divided into five groups; each group will train in one of the five artistic disciplines mentioned above according to their specialization. They will be given some basic materials for sketching for the whole journey.
They will later travel to spend four days in Cairo, where they will be provided with orientations about the Egyptian history and cultural heritage. This will be followed by a 7-day cruise along the river Nile. As an essential part of the journey, participants will also visit Luxor and Aswan to experience actual interaction with the culture and the heritage of cities on the Nile Banks.
During the cruise, participants will be grouped into ten teams; each team will include two participants from each discipline (2 painting, 2 writing, 2 photography, 2 graphics, and 2 Video Art). A theme drawn from Egyptian history and heritage will be suggested to each team to weave their artistic contribution around to formulate a comprehensive artistic project that they would present at the end of their journey. This will include components of all the five artistic forms.
Finally, participants will return to Alexandria where they will spend 6 days to finalize their work and submit their projects, which will be evaluated by specialised experts. An exhibition of the participant’s creative works will be displayed during the final conference of the program Support to Cultural Diversity and Creativity in Egypt.
Note: Mentioned dates are subject to change due to unforeseen circumstances.
The call for applications has been closed on the 20th of December, 2014.
Selections have been performed according to the criteria described in the Call for Applications.