{"id":35647,"date":"2026-02-12T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/videos\/ethics-and-aesthetics-in-the-art-galleries-of-zamalek\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T08:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T07:11:08","slug":"ethics-and-aesthetics-in-the-art-galleries-of-zamalek","status":"publish","type":"videos","link":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/videos\/ethics-and-aesthetics-in-the-art-galleries-of-zamalek\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethics and aesthetics in the art galleries of Zamalek"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paper presented at the fifth international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel)<\/a>, held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme “Ethics and Aesthetics in Islam”. Emmanuel Pisani<\/strong> (Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies, IDEO, Cairo) spoke as part of Theme 2 \u2014 Aesthetics, ethics and everyday life: prohibitions, representations and practices.<\/em><\/p>\n

Summary of the paper<\/h3>\n

This paper proposes to address the way in which the ethics and aesthetics of Islamic heritage are being reinvented in contemporary art through a case study grounded in the exhibitions of the art galleries of Zamalek, the cultural epicentre of Cairo. Through, in particular, the works exhibited by Mohamed Hasan, Rana Chalabi or Katherine Bakhoum, the paper analyses the visual expressions of Muslim spirituality and asks how Islamic heritage inspires the approach of these artists. What dialogues do they set up between tradition and modernity? How do they translate Islamic concepts into contemporary media? What dialogues are established between the sacred and the profane? By combining iconographic analysis with interviews conducted with actors of the milieu, the paper thus questions the place of Islamic faith in an artistic space perceived as secularised, and brings to light a subtle but significant reappropriation of Islamic heritage and its resonance with contemporary ethical sensibilities.<\/p>\n

\nRead the panel synthesis by Abdulrahman Usama Mahmoud<\/summary>\n
\n

This synthesis was written in the aftermath of the congress by Abdulrahman Usama Mahmoud<\/strong>, under the Pluriel student-fellowship programme. It covers all three papers of the panel.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ethics, Aesthetics and Religious Norms: Artistic and Bodily Practices in Contemporary Muslim Societies<\/h4>\n

On 12 February 2026 in Cordoba, the panel of the second theme of the congress convened under the chairmanship of Ali Mostfa. Three papers were presented: one on the “new veils” in Tunisia, another on the thought of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, and a third on the art galleries of Zamalek in Cairo. Drawing on sociology, Islamic studies, art history and philosophy, these contributions all began from the same question: how do artistic, sartorial and bodily practices allow individuals to negotiate their relationship to religious norms? This synthesis seeks to restore the exchanges of the day.<\/p>\n

The three speakers shared a common refusal: reducing Islam to a list of prohibitions. Such a reading, even when it claims to be critical, ends up missing what is actually happening in Muslim societies \u2014 namely a constant negotiation between what tradition prescribes and what individuals live, feel and choose. Egypt and Tunisia, the two contexts examined, are not alike. Their political and religious histories differ, as does their relationship to the body. Yet in both cases, something similar can be observed: individuals investing spaces \u2014 art galleries, sartorial choices, calligraphic practices \u2014 in order to inhabit their relationship to the religious norm differently, without rejecting it.<\/p>\n

Cl\u00e9mence Guinot (PISAI, Rome) worked on Abu Zayd. Her contribution offered one of the panel’s most fertile hypotheses: art, by its very nature, resists the fixation of meaning. Where politicised religious discourses seek to impose a single reading of the sacred text \u2014 what Abu Zayd called the “closure of meaning” \u2014 the work of art produces on the contrary a plurality of possible interpretations. This ambiguity is not a flaw to be corrected; it is precisely what makes art a space of resistance, discreet but real, against attempts at uniformisation. Emmanuel Pisani (IDEO, Cairo) illustrated this through the galleries of Zamalek. The artists of that Cairene neighbourhood play with the Islamic repertoire \u2014 calligraphy, Sufism, Qur’anic references \u2014 but submit it to a work of formal transformation. The case of “meta-calligraphy” is particularly telling: by rendering the sacred text visually illegible, these artists do not deny it \u2014 they transform it into a sensory experience. The divine word ceases to be a rule and becomes a vehicle of interiority. This is neither rupture nor submission; the stance resists any univocal categorisation. Henda Ghribi (Faculty of Human and Social Sciences of Tunis), for her part, worked on the veil in Tunisia. The women she interviewed recognise themselves neither in the feminist discourse that sees in it a submission, nor in the Islamist discourse that would make it the sign of a homogeneous collective identity. They insist on one thing: no text prescribes a precise sartorial model. It is in this space of indeterminacy that they improvise \u2014 to use a term that would probably suit them \u2014 a practice weaving together Islamic modesty, contemporary taste and self-affirmation.<\/p>\n

What links these three papers is, in the end, a single shift: from the normative to the sensible. The artists of Zamalek move away from canonical prayer towards Sufi figures. The Tunisian hijab becomes less the application of a rule than the expression of an “inner disposition”. This displacement speaks to something broader in the way individuals inhabit their religious belonging today.<\/p>\n

The discussion was lively. Several points of tension emerged, though none were resolved. The first concerned the nature of choice. Is wearing a “modern veil” truly a reflexive act? Or does one reproduce, in a new form, a conformity to an order that has not been genuinely interrogated? The room did not reach agreement, and the question remains open. A second point raised the social reach of these practices. Art galleries, academic discourse, international networks: all this circulates within milieus already endowed with cultural resources. What of elsewhere? The question of how these forms of expression resonate in popular classes or more conservative milieus remains entire. Several participants also mentioned an Anglo-Saxon cultural hegemony that sometimes imposes itself on connected elites without producing the effects of emancipation it promises. Post-2011 Tunisia was likewise at the heart of a debate. The appearance of the niqab after the revolution gave rise to opposing readings: a freedom regained after years of sartorial repression, or the installation of a politico-religious discourse dressed up as personal choice? The two interpretations coexist, and neither imposes itself clearly. Finally, a structural question was raised, perhaps the most unsettling of all: do these spaces of aesthetic freedom not produce their own norms? The Tunisian study shows it clearly: some women come to judge the sincerity of others’ modesty, creating new conflicts within the very communities they inhabit. Liberation through aesthetics does not abolish the boundaries of the norm \u2014 it displaces them.<\/p>\n

This panel will have contributed to shifting the gaze: rather than assessing whether these practices are “truly” free or “truly” compliant, it is a matter of understanding what they make possible and what they produce. Art, dress and bodily gesture do not stand opposed to religious norms \u2014 they work them from within, reinterpreting their margins.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/details>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"date_tournage":"","lieu":"","nature_evenement":"","vt_type":"Conf\u00e9rence","vt_yt_views":77},"video_collection":[854],"class_list":["post-35647","videos","type-videos","status-publish","hentry","video_collection-congres-de-cordoue-2026"],"date_tournage":"","yoast_head":"\nEthics and aesthetics in the art galleries of Zamalek - Pluriel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/videos\/ethics-and-aesthetics-in-the-art-galleries-of-zamalek\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ethics and aesthetics in the art galleries of Zamalek - Pluriel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Paper presented at the fifth international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel), held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme “Ethics and Aesthetics in Islam”. 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