MASS Alexandria is a non-profit space for art practice, research and education, founded by artist Wael Shawky, located in Alexandria, Egypt.
MASS Alexandria, founded in 2010 by the Alexandria artist Wael Shawky, is located in the east-Alexandrian neighbourhood of Miami. It is a 440-sqm space housed in the basement of a residential building to provide an opportunity for independent study and learning for artists in Egypt. The basement is a shared studio, library, meeting, screening and performance space. Through its programme, MASS Alex
05/11/2024
Wael Shawky Appointed First Artistic Director of Qatar Museums' Fire Station The internationally acclaimed Egyptian-born artist Wael Shawky has been appointed the first Artistic Director of QM’s creative hub, Fire Station...
20/07/2024
The New York Times
The Egyptian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale
By: Aruna D’Souza
نيويورك تايمز
عن الجناح المصري في بينالي فينيسيا
An Egyptian Artist Mesmerizes in Venice With an Opera and a Donkey At the Biennale, Wael Shawky represented his country with a lush retelling of a failed revolution that offers hope in a troubled political landscape.
29/07/2023
Our last event this summer!
Programme announcement:
SEEKING PLENITUDE IN THE MIDST OF SCARCITY
TALK BY HAIG AIVAZIAN
AUGUST 5, 2023
18:30 PM – 20:30 PM
In this talk, Haig Aivazian will draw from his time directing Beirut Art Center (BAC) (2020-2022) to talk about the various attempts BAC and others have taken on, to develop modes of address and making that might inhabit, on one hand, the welling of an unprecedented revolutionary horizon in Lebanon since 2019 and, on the other, the near total collapse of the economic and social orders, along with the various depressions, depletions and deflations it engenders.
What kinds of affect or fields of potential do practices, which we have come to call research-based, investigative, forensic… put into motion, when they unearth hidden infrastructures of violence and dispossession, or render visible the machinations of our degradation and humiliation? Can we think of cultural practices that are not solely predicated on suspicion and that instead aim to, in Eve Sedgwick’s words, “assemble and confer plenitude”?
Haig Aivazian is an artist living in Beirut. Working across a range of media and modes of address, he delves into the ways in which power embeds, affects and moves people, objects, animals, landscape and architecture. From 2020 to 2023, Aivazian was Artistic Director of Beirut Art Center (BAC) where he was founding editor of thederivative.org, among several other projects he initiated.
The language of the talk will be English.
Part of the MASS Alexandria Summer Programme at the Kunstverein in Hamburg's THE EDUCATIONAL WEB
The MASS Summer Programme is funded by art.ifa
29/07/2023
Programme announcement:
SEEKING PLENITUDE IN THE MIDST OF SCARCITY
TALK BY HAIG AIVAZIAN
AUGUST 5, 2023
18:30 PM – 20:30 PM
In this talk, Haig Aivazian will draw from his time directing Beirut Art Center (BAC) (2020-2022) to talk about the various attempts BAC and others have taken on, to develop modes of address and making that might inhabit, on one hand, the welling of an unprecedented revolutionary horizon in Lebanon since 2019 and, on the other, the near total collapse of the economic and social orders, along with the various depressions, depletions and deflations it engenders.
What kinds of affect or fields of potential do practices, which we have come to call research-based, investigative, forensic… put into motion, when they unearth hidden infrastructures of violence and dispossession, or render visible the machinations of our degradation and humiliation? Can we think of cultural practices that are not solely predicated on suspicion and that instead aim to, in Eve Sedgwick’s words, “assemble and confer plenitude”?
Haig Aivazian is an artist living in Beirut. Working across a range of media and modes of address, he delves into the ways in which power embeds, affects and moves people, objects, animals, landscape and architecture. From 2020 to 2023, Aivazian was Artistic Director of Beirut Art Center (BAC) where he was founding editor of thederivative.org, among several other projects he initiated.
The language of the talk will be English.
Part of the MASS Alexandria Summer Programme at the Kunstverein in Hamburg's THE EDUCATIONAL WEB
The MASS Summer Programme is funded by art.ifa
22/06/2023
22/06/2023
REMINDER
Summer Programme at the Kunstverein in Hamburg's Educational Web
FILM SCREENING AND ARTIST TALK
Friday, 9 June 2023, 18:30–20:30
With: Marianne Fahmy
PERFORMANCES AND ARTISTS' TALKS
Freitag, 23 June 2023, 18:30–20:30
With: Rania Atef, Mohamed Adel Dessouki and Mahmoud Tarek
EXHIBITION TOUR, ROUNDTABLE TALK AND SCREENING PROGRAMME
Saturday, 24 June 2023, 17:00–20:30
With: Rania Atef, Asmaa Barakat, Mohamed Adel Dessouki, Marianne Fahmy, Tareque Elsharquawy, South of Ajdabiya (Saif Fradj and Esraa Elfeky) and Mahmoud Tarek
TALK AND DISCUSSION
Saturday, 5 August 2023, 18:30–20:30
With: Haig Aivazian
Image courtesy: Kunstverein in Hamburg
Photos by: Fabian Schwarze
Thanks to the team of the Kunstverein in Hamburg for the great collaboration, namely director Milan Ther, exhibition manager and mastermind Linda Epp, assistant curator Theresa Roessler, head of press and communication Theresa Weise, assistant curator and accomplice Nicholas Tammens, technical director Robert Görß, head of finances Jörg Joswiak, assistant to the technical director Otis Dusör and research assistant Francisca Markus
The summer programme is supported by the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa)
02/06/2023
MASS Alexandria's current project: An exhibition with works by Rania Atef, Mohamed Adel Dessouki, Marianne Fahmy and Mahmoud Tarek as part of the Kunstverein in Hamburg's THE EDUCATIONAL WEB, open till 6 August. Photos: Berit Schuck, Nicholas Tammens
30/03/2023
Announcing a project by MASS Alexandria within an exhibition at the Kunstverein in Hamburg, Germany:
THE EDUCATIONAL WEB
March 31 - August 6, 2023
Opening: Friday, March 31, 2023
The project consists of an exhibition with works by: Rania Atef (Cairo, EG), Marianne Fahmy (Alexandria, EG), Mohamed Adel Dessouki (Cairo. EG) and Mahmoud Tarek (Franfkfurt / Main, Germany).
It will be complemented by a programme of performances screenings, talks and conversations with the artists across June 9 - August 5.
27/01/2020
Thank you, Mada Masr and Ash Moniz!
Systems of subtleties: Reflections on MASS Alexandria's latest exhibition The exhibition is MASS Alexandria's first since 2016.
21/12/2019
Many thanks to everyone who came and saw our exhibition, we are grateful, very moved and seriously happy!