56th Venice Biennale

Egyptian Pavilion

Can You See

Ahmed Abdel Fatah, Maher Dawoud, Gamal Elkheshen

Commissioner: Hany Alashkar

The Concept

Peace represents the content status, which is the aim of human beings towards achieving the physiological peace.

Peace is the nature of creation, which all religions concurred upon, it is a neutral natural alignment, which makes a balance between construction and destruction

Paradise or the ideal situation which we seek to achieve peace which varies from one person to the other. The art work raises two contradicting, twin ideas, which are destruction and construction, yet it is the law of the creation understanding this case depends on the intuitive vision beyond the reality, which sets our intention and reaction..

Work description and the Concept

The installation consists of five three dimensional shapes that forms letters of the word PEACE covered with grass.

Peace represents Arabic lingual equivalent for paradise that is related to planting and greening as well as it represents the inner peace for the human being .

Thus, the audience seeks the path that achieves the word (PEACE), and represents the state that humans aim for whether aware or not aware of the entire truth.

In that regard, the viewer can set a program of augmented reality on his cellular before entering the hall, and when applicating this program on the phone screen or laptop or display screens inside the hall, will see two options, one negative and one positive, then the viewer chooses one.

And observes the embodied in a different case the five letters switch to ten different scenes five positive and negative and deals The realistic interaction of the user by touching the screen for example, when trying to extinguish the fire with his hand on running away from fear when touching an animal.

This programmed application in the concept represents the knowledge of human being that affects his vision for the truth, and his vision in the formation of the peace that he wants under his own perspective.