About The Artwork

This work is situated in the 1919 Egyptian Revolution against the British Rule. The revolution was led by women, workers, farmers, musicians, clergymen, teachers & students. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The artwork pays homage to Sayed Darwish’s songs against the British colonizers, and it explores the Western urge to paint Arab women as oppressed in an effort to rationalize colonialism. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Sayed Darwish, was a construction worker who “built” a musical revolution which every Egyptian sang against the British Occupation without the colonizers understanding the lyrics. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The artwork is filled with symbolism of Egypt’s culture, art, music, & resistance as well as symbols of white-man colonialism & oppression, the Egyptian Labour Corps, cotton exploitation, and Cairo’s coffee shops which were forums, where writers, critics, artists and thinkers gathered & exchanged dialogue about colonialism and issues of the people. Such gatherings represented a danger to colonizers at the time.