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Marianne Fahmy - Atlas, 2020 - Spazio Ferdinand Stuflesser, Pontives

Marianne Fahmy, Atlas, 2020. HD Film, 4’30’’. Courtesy of the Artist

Marianne Fahmy’s work unfolds at the crossroads of history, fiction and mythology. In her most recent video works, she has focused on the history of water in her native Egypt and its relationship to the concept of nationalism. Imagining a potential flooding of the city of Alexandria, where she lives, in What Things May Come (2019), the artist tells the story of a people fleeing the great flood in Egypt to inhabit a secret base in the Sahara desert, prepared to host the new society. The artist is particularly interested in two landscapes seemingly at opposite ends of the spectrum: the desert and the sea, seen as entities still largely unexplored by mankind and therefore bearers of mystery, magic and potential.

Atlas (2020), on show at Pontives, is part of a series that questions the history of the control of the sea and the race of the dominant countries for its – impossible – colonisation. The title is named after one of the titans of Greek mythology, but also refers to the largest mountain range in North Africa, the Atlas mountains, which runs through Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia and serves as a geological boundary between the Mediterranean and the Sahara Desert. Cartographers drew imaginary boundaries that distinguished the explored from the unknown, inhabited by monstrous creatures that sailors believed to be real, and which in the sixteenth century were even depicted on maps in the Theatrum orbis terrarum by Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius. The film takes on the form of an ancient myth, which – by addressing issues such as maritime migration and the authority of national borders – questions our curiosity about nature and how it has influenced our world. (M.P.)

MARIANNE FAHMY

Marianne Fahmy (1992, Alexandria, Egypt) works with film and installation using ‘parafiction’ to chart new cartographies of and emotion. Recent exhibitions and film screenings include Sharjah Biennale; Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels; Middle East Institute, Washington DC; Yapı Kredi Culture Centre, Istanbul; Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, Ohio; Warwick Arts Centre; Casa Arabe, Madrid / Cordoba and Postmasters Gallery, New York; MAGA Museum of Contemporary art, Gallarate; Nurnberg Contemporary Art Museum; Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo; Sharjah Film Festival; 7th Yokohama Triennial, Manifesta 13, Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale; Havana Biennale; and Dakar Biennale. She is the recipient of the 2021 Prince Claus Fund seed award and 2024 Prince Claus Mentorship Award: Cultural & Artistic Responses to the Environmental Crisis. Her work is in the collection of Frac Bretagne, Rennes and Sharjah Foundation, UAE.

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Marianne Fahmy - Atlas, 2020 - Spazio Ferdinand Stuflesser, Pontives

Marianne Fahmy, Atlas, 2020. HD Film, 4’30’’. Courtesy of the Artist

Marianne Fahmy’s work unfolds at the crossroads of history, fiction and mythology. In her most recent video works, she has focused on the history of water in her native Egypt and its relationship to the concept of nationalism. Imagining a potential flooding of the city of Alexandria, where she lives, in What Things May Come (2019), the artist tells the story of a people fleeing the great flood in Egypt to inhabit a secret base in the Sahara desert, prepared to host the new society. The artist is particularly interested in two landscapes seemingly at opposite ends of the spectrum: the desert and the sea, seen as entities still largely unexplored by mankind and therefore bearers of mystery, magic and potential.

Atlas (2020), on show at Pontives, is part of a series that questions the history of the control of the sea and the race of the dominant countries for its – impossible – colonisation. The title is named after one of the titans of Greek mythology, but also refers to the largest mountain range in North Africa, the Atlas mountains, which runs through Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia and serves as a geological boundary between the Mediterranean and the Sahara Desert. Cartographers drew imaginary boundaries that distinguished the explored from the unknown, inhabited by monstrous creatures that sailors believed to be real, and which in the sixteenth century were even depicted on maps in the Theatrum orbis terrarum by Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius. The film takes on the form of an ancient myth, which – by addressing issues such as maritime migration and the authority of national borders – questions our curiosity about nature and how it has influenced our world. (M.P.)

MARIANNE FAHMY

Marianne Fahmy (1992, Alexandria, Egypt) works with film and installation using ‘parafiction’ to chart new cartographies of and emotion. Recent exhibitions and film screenings include Sharjah Biennale; Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels; Middle East Institute, Washington DC; Yapı Kredi Culture Centre, Istanbul; Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, Ohio; Warwick Arts Centre; Casa Arabe, Madrid / Cordoba and Postmasters Gallery, New York; MAGA Museum of Contemporary art, Gallarate; Nurnberg Contemporary Art Museum; Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo; Sharjah Film Festival; 7th Yokohama Triennial, Manifesta 13, Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale; Havana Biennale; and Dakar Biennale. She is the recipient of the 2021 Prince Claus Fund seed award and 2024 Prince Claus Mentorship Award: Cultural & Artistic Responses to the Environmental Crisis. Her work is in the collection of Frac Bretagne, Rennes and Sharjah Foundation, UAE.