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Neighbours
acrylic on canvas
(click to enlarge)
3500 LE (US$ 640)
Strolling along the streets of Heliopolis one
can nowadays notice many mosques and churches of
different faith standing peacefully together in
the immediate vicinity given a good example how
"East and West" can blend together. The history
of the suburb of Heliopolis started at the turn
of last century when the Egyptian Government
sold five thousand acres of desert land to the
Belgian industrialist, Baron Edouard Empain, who
erected the suburb of Heliopolis in a
neo-Moorish style. It all began with a basilica
and a mosque in close neighbourhood built at the
towns centre.
Exhibit: My Neighbor
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The Alley
oil on canvas
(click to enlarge)
3500 LE (US$ 640)
"The
alley or hāra was the principal urban
subdivision of Cairo until the nineteenth
century. Each alley had its own Sheikh or boss
in charge of keeping order, collecting taxes and
so on."(1) There were alleys of certain trades,
"the homely hāra, the alley way extolled in the
novels of Naguib Mahfouz",(2) alleys of the
Copts, Moslems, Greeks and Jews, and as
entangled as the houses were the lifes of the
people living there. A closed knitted
neighbourhood with their own pace of time, rules
and traditions, but also famously kind and
hospitable to stranger, inviting them for tea,
coffee or a meal. If you novadays roam the dim
narrow backstreet quarters of Cairo you still
will find these kindness and generosity. You
still will be threated there as if you are a
friend or neighbour.
Additional entry - not shown at
exhibition
(for website sale)
Exhibit: My Neighbor
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