Something Else at the Citadel

FOURTH EDITION

SOMETHING ELSE
THEME:

EMANCIPATE YOURSELF FROM MENTAL SLAVERY
REFLECTION AND SHARING
Save the date

NOVEMBER 23RD, 2024

A contemporary, non-profit independent visual arts initiative that attempts to support Egyptian and international contemporary art.

Something Else is an international art event consists of art exhibitions, art performances, films, diverse workshops, street art, talks and lectures by local as well as international artists and art connoisseurs that take place in diverse art and cultural spaces in Cairo.

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Emancipate Yourself from Mental Slavery

The last edition of Something Else was asking artists and curators a single question: what then? When we have seen the state of the world, when we have witnessed the fall of all ideologies, when the planet is in danger, what do we do? Do we sit down and cry or do we stand up fight?

We are only dealing with art. Art does not stop wars. It does not have the power to stop global warming nor any of the challenges we have to face. But art can function as a wake-up call. It carries a message of brotherhood and harmony, a message of togetherness. But in order to be able to carry on this mission, there is a sine qua non condition: freedom!

Our contemporary times are loaded with information, advices, opinions… We are surrounded by contradictory truths that prevent us from looking at the very nature of the things before our eyes. We think that our reflections are genuine, when in fact they are manipulated by the different powers to be: politics, medias, ideology, morality… As the German philosopher Friedrich Hegel noted it: we don’t know what we know!

What Jamaican singer Bob Marley suggested was to take charge of our own lives and be the rulers of our destinies. Which translates by looking for answers that have not been created by others. It means using our critical gaze and apply it to whatever surrounds us. It means questioning the state of affairs whatever domain is concerned and refusing any given truth.

This is the function of art to be beyond any vulgar contingency as Hegel wrote it: The bordering domains of the world of beauty are indeed, as we have seen it earlier, on the one hand the prose of defined reality and the ordinary consciousness above which art rises to reach the truth; on the other hand, the high spheres of religion and science in to which are changes into the grasp for the absolute, free from any sensible forms.¹

Emancipation and freedom are not commodities. They are the basis of any human activation of another. It is each and everyone’s responsibility. It is the role of art to pave the way to this new consciousness. It is the platform Something Else is providing to all those wishing to look at the world differently.

Simon Njami
Chief Curator

¹ Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, trans. Francis Plumptre Beresford Osmaston (London: G. Bell and Sons, LTD.: 1920), 15.

Side Events

Performances:

There will be a several artists from all over the world giving site-specific performances reflecting on this edition’s theme.

Workshops:

The workshops will harmonize with exhibits blurring the line between Artist and Audience, give guests the opportunity to submerse in to the cultural experience.

Panel Discussions:

Through a series of talks and panel discussions, Something Else IV will transform Cairo into a space for discussions on the importance of culture and Contemporary Art in answering some of societies deepest questions: How can society, during uncertain times, try to build something else? What does it mean to emancipate yourself from mental slavery?

“Something Else,” is a non-profit independent visual arts initiative that attempts to support Egyptian and international contemporary art through an Art Biennale idealized by Chief Curator Simon Njami and Artistic Director Moataz Nasr.

For the first part of the 20th century, Egypt was regarded as the center of cultural, intellectual and artistic production within the Arab world, and the world as whole.

Although Egypt is making considerable efforts to develop access to culture in general, it still remains underendowed and isolated, a paradox when considered that it was for millennia one of the worldwide richest culture and art producing countries.

Call for volunteers for
Something Else 2024.

We’re now getting ready for the 4th edition of Something Else, launching November 23, 2024, and we’re calling for dynamic volunteers to help as Artist Assistants, Operations and Documentation, and Art Guides.

FOURTH EDITION

SOMETHING ELSE

THEME:

EMANCIPATE YOURSELF FROM MENTAL SLAVERY

REFLECTION AND SHARING

Save the date

NOVEMBER 23RD, 2024