This book is an extension and continuation of an artwork titled Proposal for a House Museum of an Unknown Crying Man by artist Mahmoud Khaled, in which he imagines a house museum for an anonymous person who has entered Egypt’s queer history as an „unknown crying man“ and iconic image.

Mahmoud Khaled was able to continue and complete his work on the performative publication A Book on a Proposed House Museum for an Unknown Crying Man during his residency as a Fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program in 2020 and 2021.

With texts by Sara El Adl, Bassam El Baroni, Edwin Nasr, Hannah Elsisi, Lina Attalah, Ismail Fayed, Hicham Awad.

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Spectral Days by Setareh Shahbazi

“I am glad that things have changed. All efforts toward ridding oneself of the historical past and acquiring new family members have been rewarded. This new sequencing of verb tenses was the material expression of her private epiphanies. Now, photographs were just photographs: pieces of paper that could be pleated, replaced and slipped into a pocket.”

Setareh Shahbazi was born in Tehran in 1978. She moved to Germany in 1985, leaving behind a swimming pool, a garden and all family photographs. After studying Scenography and Media Art at the State University for Art and Design in Karlsruhe, she traveled to Beirut in 2003 with a scholarship from the DAAD to look through other peoples photographic archives at the Arab Image Foundation.
In 2009 Setareh Shahbazi moved to Beirut with a box of photographs from Tehran. There she got into a close conversation with her neighbor Mirene Arsanios, who is a writer based in Beirut.

Text: Mirene Arsanios
Design: Aude Lehmann
44 pages
20x15cm

D 18 €

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