How Not To Research Artists In A Foreign Country (Egypt edition)
1) Bearing in mind you have never met me, never send me this message on facebook:
'Hey Mia, X and I will be in Cairo form October 17 till November 7 and look forward to meeting. We are on a research trip wanting to meet as many artists as possible and visit artist studios. Your suggestions would me most welcome. Email me at imatwat@yahoo.com and I'll tell you more.'
2) Don't write to me if you are writing an 'Art of the Arab Spring' essay. Just don't.
3) Never write this email:
Dear Mia, I will arrive next Thursday afternoon (May 12), and will be available right from arrival. I will leave on Wednesday afternoon, May 18. On Saturday I will attend a conference. On Sunday evening at 20.00 p.m. I have an appointment already. The rest of the agenda is flexible. For this I would like to make a guided tour around Townhouse*, see some galeries, theaters, coffee houses, and meet some artists and other interesting people. I would like to make an article with 'Townhouse' as an angle. So the place where the uprising somehow started. But I would like to make it broader than that, and see what the role of artists, writers, intellectuals - the people of Townhouse, so to say - will and could be in the new Egypt. In a political sense, but also in a cultural sense. Can democratisation lead to a flourishing of culture and art? Can people pick up the pieces again of the old days, twenties to fifties, the haydays of Egyptian culture?
4) Don't write to me from Germany telling me you want to make a documentary about the Egyptian revolution with no prior knowledge or experience of Egypt whatsoever, believing you and you only can tell the 'real' story of the revolution, oh and also can you please support us with money and any people who would like to volunteer as runners for free? We hear Egyptian labour is really cheap.
5) Don't write to me saying you're doing a screening programme of Egyptian artists 'in solidarity with' the revolution when all you really want is any film with distinct levels of red, white and black and feelgood ideas of I don't know what.
6) Never have this precise email exchange with me:
- Dear Image Collective, It was strongly suggested by colleagues that I write you. I'm a visiting journalist and artist from the US, I would like to schedule an interview with someone there for the radio. I'd like to do a story about how Egypt is 'seen' these days.Also, I would like to hire a fixer/guide to enter the Zabbaleen area for a photo-essay**. Maybe you have someone in mind? My work is at CORBIS images and the Seattle Art Museum. Much thanks and looking forward to hearing from you. Jake
[in this interim period, I take the time to google Jake and listen to one or two of his reductive and predictable but otherwise inoffensive little radio spots on art in places that are not the West, so I know what I am dealing with].
- Dear Jake, Sorry for the late reply - I was travelling and couldn't access my diary. I'm able to meet tomorrow at 2 if you are still available. As the question of 'how Egypt is seen' is completely broad, it'd be good if you can introduce your research to me in some detail. I will be able to tell you about CIC's mission as regards photography tomorrow. I am very uncomfortable going on record however*** and we would need to talk about the use of any recording. Best wishes, Mia
- Mia, Much thanks for writing. I'm collecting stories about egypt after Revolution for public radio in the states, my work is here: [url] I could do a portrait, so to speak, of the centre if I get enough good recording****. Ideally, I would like to ask about how Graffiti has changed (that is the theme of your current exhibition yes?). Also, I could use a photo assistant to go to the Rubbish City to help with translating and lighting if you know anyone, please have them contact me, or I can meet them there. I'm a photographer with CORBIS images. Looking forward. 2pm Wed. Jake.
- Dear Jake, I think you're thinking of Townhouse Gallery. We don't have a show about graffiti at the moment, we have an artist's workshop as part of a project called Working Title. Yours, Mia
- oops. Do you have any contact information for the Townhouse Gallery?*****
- I'm sure the internet will help you.
- Afraid their emails get bounced back, but will ring them later. I'm not detecting much interest from you for an interview so I won't trouble you today. But if you need a guest speaker on the afternoon of the 27th I'd be happy to volunteer. Best, Jake.
At this point I genuinely don't know what he is thinking, so I don't respond. Is he really thinking he could be a guest speaker? Maybe it's just a way of being meek, ie offering resources instead of attempting to suck time and energy? I have more respect for that.
Yes, Jake, you're not detecting much interest from me. That's because I consider it professional to elaborate your research interests to your collaborators, to take seriously their concerns about journalistic integrity, to not treat them as service providers, and to do the most basic modicum of research before you approach them. Which is what, ironically, they did to you, and weren't that impressed despite your OMG CORBIS IMAGES AFFILIATION.
*Townhouse is a super important, very interesting place, THE powerhouse of contemporary art in Cairo, my colleagues and friends, and as far as the whole world is concerned, it is apparently not only the ONLY art space, but also the source of the revolution! It would be fine, but Townhouse put on mostly shit projects. They only occasionally have time for good stuff. I have a lot of admiration, but this is a whole other story of institutional politics.
** The first thing any visiting photographer wants to do is visit the Zabaleen, the Coptic recycling area. Because nothing is quite so picturesque and meaningful to the west as shocking pictures of poor (ethnic) Christians standing amidst piles of rubbish!
*** I'm a white, colonially guilty bourgeois Briton talking about 'Egypt'. Of course I'm uncomfortable going on record. Also, of the seventy thousand promises of fact and quote checks I'm assured, only one has ever gone through.
**** I love this! As if he's going to do that! And if he did, just think of the party poppers and streamers that would break out here in Cairo when little CIC heard that it would have a four and a half minute profile on the radio in the U ess of A!!!!
***** JESUS CHRIST SERIOUSLY
'Hey Mia, X and I will be in Cairo form October 17 till November 7 and look forward to meeting. We are on a research trip wanting to meet as many artists as possible and visit artist studios. Your suggestions would me most welcome. Email me at imatwat@yahoo.com and I'll tell you more.'
2) Don't write to me if you are writing an 'Art of the Arab Spring' essay. Just don't.
3) Never write this email:
Dear Mia, I will arrive next Thursday afternoon (May 12), and will be available right from arrival. I will leave on Wednesday afternoon, May 18. On Saturday I will attend a conference. On Sunday evening at 20.00 p.m. I have an appointment already. The rest of the agenda is flexible. For this I would like to make a guided tour around Townhouse*, see some galeries, theaters, coffee houses, and meet some artists and other interesting people. I would like to make an article with 'Townhouse' as an angle. So the place where the uprising somehow started. But I would like to make it broader than that, and see what the role of artists, writers, intellectuals - the people of Townhouse, so to say - will and could be in the new Egypt. In a political sense, but also in a cultural sense. Can democratisation lead to a flourishing of culture and art? Can people pick up the pieces again of the old days, twenties to fifties, the haydays of Egyptian culture?
4) Don't write to me from Germany telling me you want to make a documentary about the Egyptian revolution with no prior knowledge or experience of Egypt whatsoever, believing you and you only can tell the 'real' story of the revolution, oh and also can you please support us with money and any people who would like to volunteer as runners for free? We hear Egyptian labour is really cheap.
5) Don't write to me saying you're doing a screening programme of Egyptian artists 'in solidarity with' the revolution when all you really want is any film with distinct levels of red, white and black and feelgood ideas of I don't know what.
6) Never have this precise email exchange with me:
- Dear Image Collective, It was strongly suggested by colleagues that I write you. I'm a visiting journalist and artist from the US, I would like to schedule an interview with someone there for the radio. I'd like to do a story about how Egypt is 'seen' these days.Also, I would like to hire a fixer/guide to enter the Zabbaleen area for a photo-essay**. Maybe you have someone in mind? My work is at CORBIS images and the Seattle Art Museum. Much thanks and looking forward to hearing from you. Jake
[in this interim period, I take the time to google Jake and listen to one or two of his reductive and predictable but otherwise inoffensive little radio spots on art in places that are not the West, so I know what I am dealing with].
- Dear Jake, Sorry for the late reply - I was travelling and couldn't access my diary. I'm able to meet tomorrow at 2 if you are still available. As the question of 'how Egypt is seen' is completely broad, it'd be good if you can introduce your research to me in some detail. I will be able to tell you about CIC's mission as regards photography tomorrow. I am very uncomfortable going on record however*** and we would need to talk about the use of any recording. Best wishes, Mia
- Mia, Much thanks for writing. I'm collecting stories about egypt after Revolution for public radio in the states, my work is here: [url] I could do a portrait, so to speak, of the centre if I get enough good recording****. Ideally, I would like to ask about how Graffiti has changed (that is the theme of your current exhibition yes?). Also, I could use a photo assistant to go to the Rubbish City to help with translating and lighting if you know anyone, please have them contact me, or I can meet them there. I'm a photographer with CORBIS images. Looking forward. 2pm Wed. Jake.
- Dear Jake, I think you're thinking of Townhouse Gallery. We don't have a show about graffiti at the moment, we have an artist's workshop as part of a project called Working Title. Yours, Mia
- oops. Do you have any contact information for the Townhouse Gallery?*****
- I'm sure the internet will help you.
- Afraid their emails get bounced back, but will ring them later. I'm not detecting much interest from you for an interview so I won't trouble you today. But if you need a guest speaker on the afternoon of the 27th I'd be happy to volunteer. Best, Jake.
At this point I genuinely don't know what he is thinking, so I don't respond. Is he really thinking he could be a guest speaker? Maybe it's just a way of being meek, ie offering resources instead of attempting to suck time and energy? I have more respect for that.
Yes, Jake, you're not detecting much interest from me. That's because I consider it professional to elaborate your research interests to your collaborators, to take seriously their concerns about journalistic integrity, to not treat them as service providers, and to do the most basic modicum of research before you approach them. Which is what, ironically, they did to you, and weren't that impressed despite your OMG CORBIS IMAGES AFFILIATION.
*Townhouse is a super important, very interesting place, THE powerhouse of contemporary art in Cairo, my colleagues and friends, and as far as the whole world is concerned, it is apparently not only the ONLY art space, but also the source of the revolution! It would be fine, but Townhouse put on mostly shit projects. They only occasionally have time for good stuff. I have a lot of admiration, but this is a whole other story of institutional politics.
** The first thing any visiting photographer wants to do is visit the Zabaleen, the Coptic recycling area. Because nothing is quite so picturesque and meaningful to the west as shocking pictures of poor (ethnic) Christians standing amidst piles of rubbish!
*** I'm a white, colonially guilty bourgeois Briton talking about 'Egypt'. Of course I'm uncomfortable going on record. Also, of the seventy thousand promises of fact and quote checks I'm assured, only one has ever gone through.
**** I love this! As if he's going to do that! And if he did, just think of the party poppers and streamers that would break out here in Cairo when little CIC heard that it would have a four and a half minute profile on the radio in the U ess of A!!!!
***** JESUS CHRIST SERIOUSLY