2020 Capacete, Rio de Janeiro
Egyptian visual artist Omnia Sabry was selected to participate in the three-month artist’s residency at Capacete in Rio de Janeiro, starting April 2020. Sabry was selected from a pool of over 40 applicants to our open call from across the Arab world.
Sabry (Egypt, b. 1993) is interested in exploring language, addressing surfaces as archival bodies, sites of memory, time, and the everyday, and is currently experimenting with light-sensitive surfaces — their ability to sensitize, desensitize, erase memory, give agency to, or take agency from other surfaces.
Capacete is a residency program in Rio de Janeiro that has been active for 22 years, aiming to set up situations and develop strategies that offer concrete and real alternatives to the unstable field of art. The program in 2020 was guided by seminars, meetings, encounters, and dialogs that expand the notion of contemporary art practices. The program sought to “promote efforts to articulate the theoretical world with artistic presentations in various formats and dynamics, providing a cosmological base of experiences.”
2018 CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow
Taha Belal was selected for a three-month residency at CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, starting July 2018. Belal (Egypt, b. 1984) is an artist and co-manager/director of Acto Trade in Cairo, Egypt. His artwork often consists of a destructive formal investigation of the language and images exchanged in daily life, and he is currently experimenting with conflating his day job with his art practice through sculpture.
CCA is Glasgow’s hub for the arts with a year-round program of cutting-edge exhibitions, film, music, literature, spoken word, festivals, Gaelic, and performance. Residents may use CCA’s Creative Labs room for screenings and workshops, and CCA provides marketing and technical support for these events. They are welcome to use CCA’s equipment, including its dance floor, projectors, sound kit, and lights to experiment on their own, and may open the doors to the public at the end of the residency and discuss or share their activity. CCA staff also offer feedback on work when invited to do so.
During his stay in Scotland, Belal was generously hosted by Cove Park and Hospitalfield for different parts of the residency.
2018 WIELS | Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels
Hiba Farhat was selected for a six-month residency at WIELS | Contemporary Art Centre starting in July 2018. Farhat (Lebanon, b. 1987) is an artist and filmmaker from Lebanon. Her research and artwork tackles issues pertaining to fractured cultural, social, historical, and political contexts within an experimental framework. She has studied in Beirut, Tokyo, and Chicago.
The WIELS Residency Program is an international laboratory for emerging artists from all over the world. Located in a unique modernist building in Brussels, WIELS provides a framework for artists to pursue their practice and engage in current debates and research that examine the potentials of contemporary artistic production. WIELS provides its residents with a working studio (+/- 45 square meters) and a mentoring program for six months. During each residency, an optional public presentation or introduction of the work is organized.