Alexandria Biennial opens.
The Alexandria Biennial for Mediterranean Countries is one of the leading art events in the world. In the beginning, it was visioned to make each of its editions travel in a different Mediterranean country until it was finally settled to always organize it in the city of Alexandria for its historical heritage as the old capital of Egypt in ancient times.
The first edition of Alexandria Biennial was inaugurated in the 26th of July, 1955 by the name of 'The First Biennial for the Arts of Mediterranean Countries' and it was held in the Alexandria Museum of Fine Arts where the Biennial is still based till nowadays. The aim of the Alexandria Biennial is to fortify the cultural and artistic dialog not only between Egypt and its neighboring Mediterranean countries but to extend it all over the world as well. This year, the Alexandria Biennial celebrates its 25th edition that aims to be a panoramic view of the latest in artistic creativity coming from our region.
If the challenge of the existence, the certainty of the distinctive entity and the common attributes to groups of people, ethnically or geographically, have always played a major role in the forms of domination, the distribution of global power and the occasional rearrangement of the geographical map. And if these types of challenges play a key role in shaping the structures of different peoples and their tools to demonstrate themselves, even these personal ambitions of the humankind and his common and dissonant characteristics with the other; so to what extent the new challenges that the world faces, have affected the attributes of the Mediterranean region? Were they able to change geographically the aspects of historical affiliations of the Mediterranean? And to what extent?The Mediterranean region, with its two shores, was one of the most important focal points of human evolution for what it has witnessed of religious and spiritual intersections as well as its real contribution to the birth of science. The specificity of this region and its civilizations have created a multitude of artistic excellence that made it a center point of cultural radiation that imposed on history several creative elements that have had a major role in the dialogue between different art forms. However, these common attributes didn't prevent great changes over the course of history in the levels of power and the alteration of its civilizations center points according to the changes of humankind interest and the values that control its ambitions.
Even the oration of globalization has impacted on the lives humankind until it was about to eliminate the privacy bringing corners of the globe into one vessel where power is the dominant effect for control and where unforeseen and intangible forces take effect.
http://www.alexbiennale.gov.eg/
Oasis Mag has some photos.
