D-CAF Contemporary Art Festival Event at the Maq‘ad of Sultan Qaitbey

29 March 2019

Two events followed each other on Friday, 29 March 2019 in the Maq‘ad of Sultan Qaitbey that after conservation and adaptation by ARCHiNOS operates as a hub for art and culture in Cairo’s ‘City of the Dead’. This was the second time when the maq‘ad was a venue for performances happening as part of the Downtown Cairo Contemporary Art Festival (D-CAF).

​Six musicians who form Estabena: the Mediterranean Sea Music Project performed music, which –like the members of the band themselves– represented different languages and cultures from around the Mediterranean, the “Liquid Continent” that for millennia has more often united people on its shores than divided them.

Later, two Hungarian artists who perform as Quarzbox presented a sand-and-paint animation: a live installation where they transformed layers of sand into caleidoscopic variety of incessantly changing images projected from their sophisticated “sandbox” on a huge screen overhead. The performance was organised in collaboration with the Hungarian Cultural Counsellor and the Balassi Institute.

​As usual, local craftspeople presented and sold their wares in the front courtyard of the maq‘ad.