Imagining the Book and the Vegetal Memory
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Alexandria—the BA Arts Center will organize Imagining the Book Biennale 2007 from 17 April 2007 to 12 May 2007, held this year under the theme (Imagining the Book and Vegetal Memory) chaired by Dr. Mostafa El-Razaz, the BA Plastic Arts Advisor. This years Biennale tackles the artistic and creative aspects of "paper" manufactured from plants to save the human memory.
Maestro Sherif Mohie El-Din, Director of the Arts Center, stated that this year's Biennale will host 66 artists from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, United States of America, Spain, Canada, Russia, Argentina, Austria, Mexico, and other European and Arab countries. He added that the exhibition will be accompanied by several workshops held in Alexandria Beautification Center, and children workshop and international symposia held in the BA.
The Biennale celebrates the eminent philosopher "Umberto Eco", and adopts a study he presented 2 years ago at the BA on "Vegetal and Mineral Memory". It tackles the revolutionary change on the human memory capacity from the era of ancient Egyptians, who invented papyruses opening new scopes of documenting, recording, and exchanging ideas and experiences, up to the use of paper manufactured from plants. Umberto Eco also spoke about a new memory, the mineral memory, which depends on computers, digital language and CDs saving human memory and is easy to recall. Umberto Eco contemplated the dialogue between book and screen, between keyboard and mouse, and foresaw the future where vegetal and mineral memories will coexist, supporting each other.
This year’s Biennale includes several workshops for the youth in order to prepare them for international representation, and spread the essence of imagining the book as one of the forms of contemporary arts. These workshops will be held in the Faculties of Fine Arts both in Cairo and Alexandria. They will be led by artists Dr. Farouk Wahba and Dr. Ayman El Semary.
It is worth mentioning that the BA held a press conference in preparation to Imagining the Book Biennale 2007: Imaging the Book and Vegetal Memory. Maestro Sherif Mohie Eldin attended the press conference, chaired by Dr. Mostafa El-Razaz, Chair, Imagining the Book Biennale. Both Susan Horvitz and Robert Roosh, Commissioners of the Biennale, participated in the conference.
The Biennale opening will be held on Tuesday, 17 April 2007, at 19:00 hrs.