I want to be an astronaut, an artist, a marine biologist, the president. I want to travel around to see new places, meet interesting people and experience different cultures. Those might have been some of the answers Turkish artist Burcu Bilgiç expected when she asked a group of residents of Ard al-Lewa about their dreams. But the responses she got were very different. Bilgiç, who has a background in philosophy and film making, is based in Brussels, Belgium. Interested in learning about Egyptian culture, she began a two-month residency program at the Artellewa art center last August. Artellewa is an artist-run gallery that opened in 2007 in the heart of the Ard al-Lewa, an underprivileged informal settlement on the outskirts of Cairo with limited social and cultural services. Like many international artist residency programs around the Middle East, Artellewa seeks to promote intercultural dialogue and develop the local community's interest in art by engaging it with artists in temporary residence. In a poem titled "Daydreaming in Ard al-Lewa” Bilgiç expresses her distress with the local living conditions and the desire to escape the harsh reality through daydreaming. This idea of daydreamers taking refuge in different worlds of their own construction has long interested the artist. She began asking people in Ard al-Lewa about their aspirations and dreams for a video piece she produced by the end of her residency called "Daydreamers," which she is currently exhibiting at Artellewa. Accompanied by a local interpreter, the artist set up interviews with children, youth and elderly residents from Ard al-Lewa, expecting to hear about their daydreams. But the responses were disappointing. Some people said they simply had no future dreams, while other aspirations were confined to marriage and starting a family. These answers could be partially attributed to the language barrier, which prevented Bilgiç from directly conversing with interviewees and persuading them to talk more openly. Other factors might be related to different cultural values and local conditions. Family life, for instance, is highly valued in Egyptian culture. “Few interviews were fruitful. People were very resistant to talking about their aspirations and even prevented me from filming around the neighborhood. The only time I was able to film was at dawn. Naturally, everything was closed and the streets were totally empty,” explained Bilgiç. Faced with these challenges, Bilgiç redesigned her project from one that presents a community's dreams as a window into its people's lives to one about her personal experience in Ard al-Lewa. The looped "Daydreamers" video installation comprised two main segments. In the first part, Bilgiç presented excerpts from her interviews with residents. Their voices, however, are purposefully muffled to reflect the difficulty the artist had communicating with the Arabic-speakers. This was highly alienating to the exhibition audience. The second segment displays run-down stores and workshops as well as locked gates to residential buildings around the neighborhood. The artist contrasts the empty streets she filmed at dawn with a sound piece she developed from the honks of cars and tok-toks--narrow motorized vehicles common in informal settlements in Egypt--as well as the shouting of street vendors often heard in Ard al-Lewa. The locked doors and gates resonate with the artist's experience. Sympathetic as she was, Bilgiç was not highly successful in developing an intimate relationship with the residents and engaging them with her practice. Residents seemed trapped in a local context that prevented them from daydreaming, at least in the manner Bilgiç had expected. Through "Daydreamers," Bilgiç hopes to encourage the residents to reflect on their living environment and dreams and perhaps re-evaluate some local problems such as sound pollution. As a representation of local living conditions, "Daydreamers" is quite simplistic and tends to flatten the local context. The broken streets and buildings might not be so striking to fellow Cairenes, so showing them in the video will not necessarily inspire reflection on the neighborhood. And issues Bilgiç chose to focus on, like sound pollution, might not be a highly pressing one for residents. But such problems arise in many art projects with a social dimension. Socially engaged art becomes more problematic in the context of artist residency programs as many artists experience their host communities for the first time and for a very short period. Some art projects are met with resistance, as reflected in the residents preventing Bilgiç from filming around Ard al-Lewa. Some skeptics of residency programs have condemned them to the extent of calling them artist tourism. Some issues might be solved with a longer residency or recurring visits. Asked if she preferred to stay longer at Artellewa, Bilgiç replied that she needed some time away from the neighborhood to reflect on her experience before coming back to fully engage with the area. "Daydreamers" is exhibited at Artellewa from 18 to 30 October 2010 19 Mohamed Ali al-Eseary, Ard al-Lewa, Giza The gallery is open daily from 5PM to 10PM, except on Saturdays
