"The Parent's Bedroom" of 42 Bahgat Ali

This is one room from my bigger installation of "42 Bahgat Ali" created in 2019, an installation of 182 pieces of painted hand and laser cut works. 

This installation is an illusion for my family home where I grew up in Cairo, Egypt, and how I see it now after so many event and life changes passed by changing alot of feelings I have towards this home, while it still stands the exact same with all its details. This is an imaginary snap shot of my home in the 90's when I was a teenager, when everyone was alive and the home was full of life and events, while we are preparing for lunch at 2:25 pm and the TV is on (sound installation from the TV), and what I present in this submission is one room from the home (please check video to see all the work). 

My Parent's bedroom, this presented work, is in an active state, it has clothes and shoes and an unmade bed, everyone in the home is on the move, but no one is there. The spectator is the person hosted in my home now, viewing our private details and belongings. 

The below is the show write up: 

"Under this ceiling is where I have grown to be who I am and towards where my feelings have kept wavering for the last four decades.

In between these walls is where I impulsively had the urge to escape as a teenager, nevertheless it is the only place I cease to exist as a woman.

Inside these rooms are the people whom always made me spontaneously run to embrace them yet rather flee in escape from them sometimes.

This is the home that abundantly bears all things; scattered, new, inherited and discovered; each possessing its own unique story in which I am part of.

And just by standing in front of its curved wooden door preparing to enter that my heart gets filled with warmth and serenity.

This is the home that carries enduring echoes of hugs, kisses, laughs, beautiful moments and occasional fights but always and forever joyful echoes of eternal love.

It is my family home in 42 Bahgat Ali."

Hana El-Sagini