Exhibition 'Time and Again Kemet | Small exhibition' in National Museum of Antiquities
Artists Wes Mapes, Sara Sallam and duo Mirjam Linschooten & Sameer Farooq give their contemporary and personal perspectives on antiquities from Egypt in this small exhibition. In doing so, they question the commonly known Eurocentrist depictions of Egyptian culture that emerged in the nineteenth century.
- You will find Time and Again Kemet behind the Egyptian Temple, in the entrance hall which is free to visit.
Egyptomania in the nineteenth century
Imaginations of ancient Egypt are widespread. For centuries, people tried to interpret the many traces of the Egyptian past. In Europe, ancient Egypt was long seen as part of the Biblical and Classical worlds. Since the early nineteenth century, Egyptian antiquities were excavated on a large scale and sold to museums around the world. A veritable Egyptomania arose: European painters and composers created numerous fantasies about ancient Egypt, shaping their conceptions of this ancient culture from a European perspective.
Four artists
For Time and Again Kemet, the four artists give their own take on this. For example, Sara Sallam brings a sarcophagus from the museum display of the National Museum of Antiquities back to Egypt with a manipulated photomontage (2017-present). With the tapestry Sahara Scattage (2018), Wes Mapes proudly creates a visual narrative about his ancestral, African roots. For duo Sameer Farooq and Mirjam Linschooten, the break-in at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, during the popular uprising in 2011, was the impetus for the art project Something Stolen, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Blue (2013-present), several of whose images are now on display at the museum.
