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Esraa Elfeki - What is beyond you, 2024 - Cësa di Ladins Museum Gherdëina, Ortisei

Esraa Elfeky, What is beyond you, 2024. Drawings on Transparent Paper. 29,7 x 21 cm / 42 x 29,7 cm. Commissioned by Biennale Gherdëina 9. Photo by Tiberio Sorvillo

In her work, artist and filmmaker Esraa Elfeky explores the complex relationships between landscape, nature, and human experience. As part of an ongoing exploration of her native Egypt, the desert landscape becomes a recurring site of imagination and storytelling, often about historical and political events between apocalypse, decay, and reconstruction. In her short film I’ve Known Rivers, together with Saif Fradj, she researched desert areas in North Africa that were once home to seas that dried up over time. Following a slow, meditative rhythm, the images trace the radical transformation of these places.

As part of The Parliament of Marmots, Esraa Elfeky adapted her ongoing project entitled What is beyond you for the natural history department of the Museum Gherdëina in Ortisei. In doing so, she appropriated the museum’s standard modes of presentation to tell stories of apocalypse, survival, adaptation, and extinction using the example of non-human bodies, in this case, rare butterfly species. She reflects on the power relations between humans and animals by emphasizing that animals are often used as metaphors with political connotations. The drawings present imaginary, hybrid butterflies inspired by endangered species that the artist researched and documented in the mountains of Saint Catherine in Egypt and in the Alps in Switzerland. The idea of hybridity, as well as the strategy of mating with other strains that occur in nature, can be read in this sense as an act of survival in situations of extreme change and catastrophe. (S.G.) 

ESRAA ELFEKY 

Esraa Elfeky (1989, Cairo, Egypt) is a multimedia artist navigating themes such as the apocalypse, decay, and resurrection as an ongoing exploration of her native country. Her work has been exhibited worldwide at W139, Amsterdam; Kunstverein, Hamburg; Gabes Cinema fen; Arab Media Lab, Marrakesh; Zawya Cinema and Townhouse Gallery, Cairo; MMAG Foundation, Amman; Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi. Elfeky is the recipient of awards such as the special mention award for the short films in the 5th edition of Gabes Cinema fen, Gypsum bursaries, Warehouse421 Production grant, and 25th Youth Salon Prize for Installation Art at Cairo’s Opera House.

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Esraa Elfeki - What is beyond you, 2024 - Cësa di Ladins Museum Gherdëina, Ortisei

Esraa Elfeky, What is beyond you, 2024. Drawings on Transparent Paper. 29,7 x 21 cm / 42 x 29,7 cm. Commissioned by Biennale Gherdëina 9. Photo by Tiberio Sorvillo

In her work, artist and filmmaker Esraa Elfeky explores the complex relationships between landscape, nature, and human experience. As part of an ongoing exploration of her native Egypt, the desert landscape becomes a recurring site of imagination and storytelling, often about historical and political events between apocalypse, decay, and reconstruction. In her short film I’ve Known Rivers, together with Saif Fradj, she researched desert areas in North Africa that were once home to seas that dried up over time. Following a slow, meditative rhythm, the images trace the radical transformation of these places.

As part of The Parliament of Marmots, Esraa Elfeky adapted her ongoing project entitled What is beyond you for the natural history department of the Museum Gherdëina in Ortisei. In doing so, she appropriated the museum’s standard modes of presentation to tell stories of apocalypse, survival, adaptation, and extinction using the example of non-human bodies, in this case, rare butterfly species. She reflects on the power relations between humans and animals by emphasizing that animals are often used as metaphors with political connotations. The drawings present imaginary, hybrid butterflies inspired by endangered species that the artist researched and documented in the mountains of Saint Catherine in Egypt and in the Alps in Switzerland. The idea of hybridity, as well as the strategy of mating with other strains that occur in nature, can be read in this sense as an act of survival in situations of extreme change and catastrophe. (S.G.)

ESRAA ELFEKY 

Esraa Elfeky (1989, Cairo, Egypt) is a multimedia artist navigating themes such as the apocalypse, decay, and resurrection as an ongoing exploration of her native country. Her work has been exhibited worldwide at W139, Amsterdam; Kunstverein, Hamburg; Gabes Cinema fen; Arab Media Lab, Marrakesh; Zawya Cinema and Townhouse Gallery, Cairo; MMAG Foundation, Amman; Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi. Elfeky is the recipient of awards such as the special mention award for the short films in the 5th edition of Gabes Cinema fen, Gypsum bursaries, Warehouse421 Production grant, and 25th Youth Salon Prize for Installation Art at Cairo’s Opera House.