Exhibition: The Transnational Aesthetics of Arab Stardom, Street Art and Digital Design 

The exhibition is located in OC0.04. Be sure to come and visit it while you're at the conference!

This exhibition showcases the transnational aesthetics of the Cairo-based artist Bahia Shehab. Through a series of three different installations, the exhibition explores the themes of identity, women’s rights and political revolution, and the ways in which art may be employed for the purposes of social change.

Bahia Shehab is a multidisciplinary artist, designer, political activist and historian whose work focuses on the interaction and intersection of modern identity and ancient cultural heritage. Having always been concerned with identity and preserving cultural heritage, she investigates art history to reinterpret contemporary Arab politics, feminist discourse and social issues. Her culturally oriented work enables her to use history as a means to better understand the present and propose solutions for the future. Her work has been exhibited globally and she has received several awards and recognition for her achievements.

In 2024, Bahia Shehab ran a series of workshops in Cairo, Egypt with 13 young creatives, who designed representations of much-loved stars of Arab cinema. The images were inspired by the chapters of the contributors to the book Transnational Arab Stardom: Glamour Performance and Politics, edited by Kaya Davies Hayon and Stefanie Van de Peer and (2024). The designs included in the book as illustrations were created by Sara Elmeniawy, Nelly Ashmawy, Salma Elbarbary, Bahia Shehab, Salma Safaan, Fatema Shams, Farah Montasser, Mohamed Tawfiq, Mira Hani Makram, Samia El Khodary, Engy Sabry and Noor Tarek.

‘A Thousand Times NO’ was inspired by the Egyptian uprising of 2011. The symbols have been painted in different cities around the world and are used in political campaigns globally.

The video in the exhibition displays images celebrating the work of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. It is part of an ongoing series of murals painted in different cities around the world.

Curators

Kaya Davies Hayon is a Lecturer in Film & Media at the Open University. Her research examines the intersections of gender, ethnicity and sexuality in contemporary Arab film and visual cultures.

Stefanie Van de Peer is Reader in Film and Media at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. Her research centres around feminist film cultures around the globe, with a specific interest in the film history of the 1970s and 1980s.