Digital HD Video, 15 min, 2021
Commissioned by Redzone Festival, curated by Rasha Salah
Co-organized by Culture Resource (Lebanon) and KKV (Norway)
In Dismantling, I take the viewer through different aspects of my practice, opening with a tour of my studio in the Abdeen neighbourhood in central Cairo — filmed at the time of production. I talk about my sources of inspiration: my longstanding interest in the relationship between the seemingly banal and the wider socio-political context, and the way the city and its architecture shape how I think about installation and space.
The video also traces how I develop a concept — how each new work grows out of a thread from a previous one, and the thinking behind making installations that are deliberately ephemeral.
Filmed in 2020, the work is also shaped by that year’s particular circumstances: the lockdown, the uncertainty, the challenge of maintaining a practice under those conditions. I talk openly about how that period affected me, both professionally and personally.
Bassem Yousri 