Artist
Reda Abdelrahman
CARAVAN 2013
Reda has most recently co-curated the CARAVAN visual art exhibition of the 2013 CARAVAN Festival of the Arts, an interfaith arts initiative that started in Cairo, Egypt, promoting understanding between East and West, Muslims and Christians. He sculpted the donkey that was used as the form for this year's Visual Arts segment of the Festival and helped to recreate the whole exhibition when it moved to St Paul's Cathedral, London.
PAINTED DONKEYS
Additionally, Reda painted a life-size donkey and a smaller (1/4 size) donkey for the CARAVAN exhibition, as an interfaith symbol of "peace and compassion". Following the exhibition of the donkeys in Cairo at the 2013 CARAVAN Festival of the Arts, his life-size donkey went on exhibition at St. Paul's Cathedral, London.
The Renaissance Donkey
"I always feel that there is a connection between the donkey and the Egyptian citizen who is always crushed and poor.
I divided the body into two parts to make a political statement. The rear section symbolizes the military, which often blindly pushes their agenda without taking into consideration the results.
The front section represents a leader that is a face of an unhealthy troika: financial authority and the religious fascism and military mafia. I hold them responsible for all the Egyptians who died during the revolution.
I invite observers to write a statement on one of the small mummies and place them in the basket that the donkey is bearing, and thereby symbolically taking the responsibility of all the martyrs as a result of these three aggressive powers: the money, religion and military."
- Reda Abdel Rahman
THE DONKEY-AN EGYPTIAN ICON
These paintings, inspired by the CARAVAN painted donkeys, were exhibited in a solo exhibition held in the gallery of The Mosaic Rooms for the Sotheby's charity auction of the painted donkeys on 27 September 2013
