Over the course of 5 days of research, discussion, reflection and creation, Ahmed Shawky Hassan will lead workshop participants through a set of practical and theoretical experiments involving the practice of art writing. Participating individuals will learn to write rich descriptive texts about their artworks whether for potential future projects or already completed and produced past artworks.
Via its outcomes the workshop aims to allow participants to re-acquaint themselves with the nature of their own artistic practice. Additionally, they will be asked to reconsider such questions as: What roles can the artist embody and alternate between in order to effectively convey their artistic projects? And is there truly a need to do so?
This workshop is aimed at artists looking to enhance their professional practice as actors in vast and multi-layered circles of knowledge in which the artist may play multiple roles; as writer, curator, entrepreneur… or any role that might enable them to reach ambitious iterations of their art pieces in the future. Therefore, this workshop does not aim to produce texts that carry a specific language (standard or aesthetic), but rather to make practical attempts at presenting an analytical picture of the nature of participants’ artistic practices and their underlying methodologies.

About the Artist:

Ahmed Shawky Hassan is an artist and writer, Born in 1989 in Ismailia, Egypt. His practice examines the affects and effects of current and historical narratives of the arts, through the investigation of their manifestations and proliferation in the current art sphere. Through text, objects, video and drawing he invites the viewer to explore these hidden and unofficial narratives in the gallery, studio and museum hall. While questioning the roles of the curator, artist, and the viewer as complicit in the preconceived assumptions around artwork and space.

Shawky Hassan has published his books “The Collapse of the Contemporary Art Factory” and “The Video Museum”, supported by the Arab Fund for Culture and Arts – AFAC, and published by Al-Mahrousa Center for Publishing, Press Services and Information, 2022 and 2020. His latest exhibitions include “Inauguration” in Sharjah Art Gallery, AUC, 2019 and his Solo exhibition “An Object Resembling an Artwork” in Townhouse Gallery, 2017.  

Shawky Hassan received his BA from the Faculty of Art Education at Cairo’s Helwan University in 2011. He worked as co-director of MHWLN (a research group devoted to researching and reflecting on the history of contemporary art in Egypt) in 2016 and 2017. Recent awards and grants include Pro Helvetia’s Research Trip for the Visual Arts Program, Switzerland, 2018, AFAC Visual Arts Grant, 2017, The official award of the “Institut Francais/Cite international des arts” residency program, France, 2017 and Roznama Award (presented by Gypsum gallery) Medrar for Contemporary Art, Egypt, 2016.