integrated - Bahia Shehabu
a project in collaboration with Sint Lucas Antwerp
Revealed on November 8 famous and Saint Luke Antwerp the latest artwork by Lebanese-Egyptian artist Bahia Shehab. She created the custom design for the Zirkstraat 36 site in the context of Integrated 2019 . The artwork was realized by students of the school, volunteers from The Connection and the artist herself. The building thus becomes a unique site and part of the Mahmoud Darwish project, a series of works in New York, Amsterdam and Tokyo, among others.
Bahia Shehabu
Bahia is a multidisciplinary artist (°1977), based in Cairo. In her art she interweaves her love for history, Arab culture and literature, with her political activism. This combination resulted in her world famous artwork “A thousand times no”. For that installation she collected the word 'no' in the Arabic language 1000 times. The work focuses on calligraphy and the richness of the word design.
wall drawing
For Integrated X De Connectie Bahia designed a unique piece based on the verse: “All the hearts of the people are my identity- release me of my passport”. The artist thus brings her subtle but clear resistance – each time borrowing lines of poetry from the work of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish – to the streets of Antwerp. The chosen verse by Darwish is striking because it connects 'identity' with 'the heart' but also with (the problem of) 'the passport'.
The result is a handmade typographic mural. The mural can then be visited from Monday to Friday, from 9 am to 5 pm.
Integrated X The Connection
Integrated is the biennial design conference organized by Sint Lucas Antwerp, this year under the heading of 'radical imagination'. The mural is a collaboration between Bahia Shehab, Sint Lucas Antwerp and De Connectie. The Connection is the project of famous for artistic newcomers to the city of Antwerp. At the beginning of this year, the two organizations already worked together on an Exchange Week between students and participants of De Connectie.
Free to visit from Monday to Friday 9 am - 5 pm.
Location: Zirkstraat 36, 2000 Antwerp
MORE INFO
Sint Lucas School of Arts: Ruth Loos ruth.loos@kdg.be
The Connection: Jozefien Stevens jozefien@fameus.be and Adams Mensah adams@fameus.be