Khaled Hafez
2021The Video Diaries
Khaled Hafez
Cairo-based Khaled Hafez's latest work, The Video Diaries, is the artist's response to the revolution that swept through Egypt in January and February 2011. This three-channel video has been adapted for Ibraaz into a single-channel work in which three windows display footage either shot by the artist or taken from social and international media. These moving images - showing policemen; protesters singing and praying; and people apparently being shot or attacked by water cannons - run simultaneously across the three screens, while clocks urgently count down the seconds of the work's duration. A persistent, echoing beat; the sounds of a baying crowd; and a lachrymose guitar solo accompany the footage at different points.
The Video Diaries
Revolution
Khaled Hafez
In 1952, a group of military officers came to power in Egypt with a coup d’etat. They came with a bouquet of promises: independence from the British empire, modernization of a country worn out by centuries of occupation, social equity and proper distribution of wealth to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, unity of all factions, minorities and ideologies in one big modern democratic society. Slightly over half a century later and despite the sometimes blind faith and total belief of the mass public, all promises remain unfulfilled. The screen is divided in three parts; each part shows the protagonist/ freedom fighter. The parts are social equity, liberty and unity.
Revolution
