Cairo

Projects

Every time I take on a project, there are a number of different stages I have to go through. First, I need to introduce myself to the community. It is important that they don’t see me as an outsider. Before I start, I make sure I learn as much about a place as possible and so, when I meet the people there, I have some level of understanding. After making initial contact, I also try to show people that whilst I am there, I plan to be part of the society and that the artwork I make is relevant and meaningful to them. Art, for me is a human experience. It has the power to connect and unite and when I make an artwork, I leave it behind to live beyond me and take with me the memories of getting to know the people and the place.

MIrage

AL-Ula

In the 7th century, Jameel Bin Ma’mar was famous as a lover of the lady Buthayna from a neighboring tribe.  The story of their romance is that Buthayna’s people turn down Jameel’s marriage proposal because they feel Jameel’s verses praising their love have compromised her honor—merely saying that a woman loved a man …

The journey

Lebanon

In June 2019, eL Seed visited the refugee camp of Ain Al Helweh in south Lebanon and met a group of women artisans who are preserving the old art of Palestinian Embroidery. His idea was to paint a few murals all around the camp and then ask the women to reproduce them into Palestinian embroidery, to later sell them.

 

MIRRORS OF BABEL

TORONTO

Mirrors of Babel is a multi-part installation that proposes an inversion of the biblical story that explain why the world’s peoples speak different languages. The content of the calligraphic architecture is based on the Arabic translation of …

PERCEPTION

Cairo

In his project Perception, eL Seed is questioning the level of judgment and misconception society can unconsciously have upon a community based on their differences. 
In the neighborhood of Manshiyat Nasr in Cairo, the Coptic community of Zaraeeb collects the trash of the city for decades and developed the most efficient and highly profitable recycling system on a global level. Still, the place is perceived as dirty, marginalized and segregated.

THE BRIDGE

DMZ SOUTH Korea

Bringing people, culture and generations together through Arabic calligraphy is what eL Seed aspires to achieve through every artwork. When the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art in Ansan, South Korea approached him to create an art piece in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea, the goal was to celebrate a call for reunification, unity and mutual respect. eL Seed’s initial plan was to build a bridge-like sculptural artwork that would curve upwards to a height of 20 meters, but stop at the mid-way point.

Bridges are never built from one side; their very nature needs a step forward from both sides, so by extending the sculpture to the mid-point, he was intending to make a gesture of solidarity. The project would remain unfinished until another art piece was installed in North Korea, thus making it the ultimate symbol of unification.

DECLARATION

Dubai

In 2018, when Dubai Opera commissioned me for a sculpture, I wanted to pay tribute to Declaration and make my declaration of love permanent. Jean Cocteau said: ‘There is no love. There are only proofs of love’. Bringing my art into 3D was a way to allow it to materialize. The work is still tied to script, but by releasing the letter forms from one dimension I discovered new territories for expression that celebrate and elaborate my deep respect and love for this art.

Louis Vuitton

Foulard d'artiste

Autumn/winter 2013 season marked the first time that Louis Vuitton manufactured a product designed by an artist from the Middle East. 

As part of its autumn/winter Foulard d’Artistes (‘Artists’ Scarves’) project, fashion powerhouse Louis Vuitton adopted a design by eL Seed on its emblematic giant silk square.  

On his rendetition of the Louis Vuitton scarf, eL Seed illustrated four verses from a poem dubbed “Venice Carnival” by Taha Muhammad Ali. He gave an homage to the people of Venice, a tribute to the beauty and elegance of this city and its openness to the Eastern world. During the 12th century, the Pope forbid any relations between Europe and the Arab world…

Myrelingues La Brumeuse

lyon

Lyon is known as the city of a thousand languages. Legend and myth swirl at its shores and it is a place where fiction and truth overlap. This spirit is captured in Myrelingues La Brumeuse, a historic novel written by Claude Le Marguet about the fictional birth of the silk industry in 16th century Lyon. Its title (translated approximately as A Thousand Misty Languages) has become indicative of the city itself. eL Seed chose the title of this novel for his project for the 14th edition of La Biennale De Lyon (2017) to convey the sense of mystery the city evokes.

The event, held under the title Floating Worlds (CHK), was a showcase of artworks “docked in the heart of a territory whose identity was partly shaped by the ubiquity of water in a city that rose from the waters and through which the Rhone and the Saone run”.

SOUL OF THE BLACK BOTTOM

Philadelphia

This mural in West Philadelphia is titled Soul of the Black Bottom. It comes from the neighbourhood’s history of demolition and displacement and quotes part of the semi-autobiographical text Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois. As a sociologist, Du Bois wrote the first sociological study on African American community in Philadelphia and as an author, he addressed civil and political rights through both fiction and non-fiction.

LOST WALLS

tunisia

Lost or forgotten were the walls that now proudly carry the messages of eL Seed, from his road trip around Tunisia during the summer 2013, beautifully and poetically documented in his first book ‘Lost Walls’. Sparked by the reaction to his project on the minaret of the Jara mosque in his home town of Gabes, eL Seed decided to set out on a month long personal journey across his mother country painting ‘Lost Walls’ along the way. The resulting book provides a unique and rare insight into eL Seed artistic process and Tunisia.

MADINATI

tunisia

In 2012, when eL Seed painted the minaret of Jara Mosque in his hometown of Gabes, in the south of Tunisia, he never thought that an art piece would bring so much attention to his city

Initially, he was just looking for a wall in his hometown, and it happened that the minaret was built in 1994. And for 18 years, those 57 meters of concrete stayed grey. When he met the Imam of the Mosque for the first time, and he told him what he wanted to do, the Imam responded, “Thank God you finally came,”. For years he was waiting for somebody to do something on it. The most amazing thing about this imam is that he didn’t ask me anything — neither a sketch, or what I was going to write…

Worldwide

Projects