The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Currently on display at The Art Gallery in Sheikh Zayed is “Trauma”, a group exhibition featuring four female artists from diverse backgrounds, coming together to show us what trauma means to them through their art and creating a space for a sharing of this collective human experience.

“Trauma” has installations of various mediums like acrylic, photography, sculptures, pencil, and mixed media, all attempts for each artist to show, in their own way, the various difficulties and emotions they have gone through. The artists themselves are as diverse as the mediums they use. One of them, Afraa Ahmed, is a Yemeni multi-disciplinary artist based in Cairo who’s lived outside her country for many years. She channels her experiences abroad and the feelings of exile by combining photography and sculpting to create a journey of experiencing the isolation she had gone through.

As you travel further into the exhibition, you will meet with the acrylic paintings of Dalia Negm, an award-winning Egyptian teaching assistant at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Mansoura University. Through her work, she’s attempting to bring to light themes from upper Egypt, her paintings highlighting instances of familial relations and culture that we might not be familiar with in our city lives.

Next, you’ll find artist Nashwa Ata’s collection. She mainly creates self-portraits in various styles and mediums, where you can see a reflection of her different desires, and emotional and mental states, acting as a kind of mirror to the whirlwinds of emotions and different seasons we experience.

Ghada Waleed allows us to get close and interact with her art as she has her own sketchbooks of her doodles on display, which visitors can flip through. Doodling had always been her way of unloading what was on her mind, allowing it to manifest into swirling shapes and colours. Her art brings out the beauty hidden in the chaos of her mind.

The exhibition “Trauma” is the voice of many women attempting to convey adversities, mental turmoil, or intense emotions that we all have experienced. It is not only a reminder of how, despite their uniqueness and diversity in expressions, these experiences are shared among all of us, but it is also a chance for us to witness these experiences transformed into beautiful bodies of work that are, in the end, healing, and full of hope.

Don’t miss the exhibition from 10 am to 10 pm every day except for Fridays at The Art Gallery.