You know, I was thinking recently about how we
process big, earth -shattering historical events.
When you think of a revolution... What is the
first image that pops into your head? Usually,
I mean, it is something massive, a statue of
a general on a horse maybe or a giant mural.
Right. Or those black and white photos of thousands
of people filling a square where the individuals
just sort of blur into this single grainy wave.
Exactly. We tend to remember history in wide
angle. It is huge. It is loud. And usually, you
know, it is written down in a textbook long after
the dust has settled. Yeah. That is the standard
way we interact with it. But today for this deep
dive, I want to look at something that goes in
the completely opposite direction. We are looking
at a piece of art that tries to capture the weight
of a revolution, specifically the Egyptian revolution
of 2011. Right. But it does it with something
small, something fragile. Clay. Clay. Baked earth.
We have got a lot of fascinating source material
today, and our mission is to explore an installation
piece called El Shab by the Egyptian artist Moataz
Nasser. And I got to say, looking at the images
of this work, it is disarming. It creates a very
specific cognitive dissonance, doesn't it? It
really does. It is not what I expected when I
saw the topic of revolutionary art. You expect
noise and grandeur, but Ilshab gives you silence
and intimacy. This is not a monument you look
up at. It is something you have to lean in to
see. Let us set the scene for you listening at
home since you cannot see this right now. We
are not talking about a 50 -foot bronze statue
here. Far from it. We are looking at 25. painted
ceramic figures. And they're small, only about
27 by 6 by 10 centimeters. So roughly the height
of a standard reusable water bottle. Or maybe
like an action figure. A bit taller than an action
figure, but yes, that scale. Hand -sized, intimate.
And they are just standing there. They are arranged
in clusters on shelves. And I think that size
is the first crucial decision Nasser made here.
If you make a statue 10 feet tall, it becomes
a god. If you make it 27 centimeters, it remains
a person. That is a really interesting distinction.
It keeps it on a human level. But here's the
challenge, and I guess this is the core of our
deep dive today. How do these tiny, fragile figurines
manage to hold the weight of something as massive
as the Arab Spring? Because 2011 was not a quiet
event. It was explosive. To understand that,
we really have to start with the name. El Shab.
Which translates to what exactly? It translates
to... The people. OK. The people. In English,
that can sound a bit generic, like a demographic
category. You know, we surveyed the people. Right.
Sounds clinical. But in 2011 in Cairo, that word
had a completely different electricity, didn't
it? Oh, absolutely. It was the engine of the
entire movement. And you have to remember the
soundscape of Tahrir Square. There was one chant
that became the heartbeat of the uprisings, not
just in Egypt, but across the region. Ashab yurid
iskwetam. Ashab yurid. The people want to bring
down the regime. The people want to bring down
the regime. That is a powerful translation. Right.
And look at where the emphasis lands in that
phrase. It starts with ashab, the people. For
decades, the history of that region, and frankly,
most regions, was defined by the names of leaders.
The presidents, the kings, the autocrats. Exactly.
The regime. But this chant flipped the script
entirely. It said, the subject of the sentence
is no longer the leader. The subject is us, the
people. So by naming the piece El Shabnasir is
essentially freezing that chant in physical form.
He is grounding the viewer in that collective
identity. He is saying, look at the grammar of
the revolution. It was not about a new leader
stepping up to a podium. It was about the collective
body that flooded the streets. And that brings
us to the figures themselves. You mentioned there
are 25 of them on what we could call the main
display. How are they arranged? You said clusters
earlier. Yes, and that distinction matters quite
a bit. They are not marching in a phalanx. They
are not in a military grid. They are in clusters.
Like a natural gathering. It mimics the organic
way people assemble in a protest. You go with
your friends. You meet strangers. You form these
little knots of humanity. It feels less like
an army and more like a neighborhood just showing
up. Precisely. Yeah. And the key visual element
here is diversity. Our sources emphasize that
Nasr was very intentional about showing that
the people was not a monolith. It was not just
young men or just workers or just students. It
was everyone. It was everyone. The ceramics captured
different postures, different energies. It represents
that moment where society actually sees itself
as a whole for the first time. And they were
there for very specific things. I think we need
to talk about the demands because the artwork
is essentially a physical manifesto. The list
of motivations for this assembly found in the
source material is pretty powerful. They were
demanding the end of a tyrannical government.
They wanted freedom, human dignity, social justice.
Big abstract noble concepts. But then there's
one that hits differently, bread. Yes, bread.
It seems so simple compared to social justice,
but in this context, bread is not just a side
item. It is everything. In the context of the
Egyptian revolution and in this artwork. Bread
is interpreted as life. There is a visceral connection
there. If you cannot feed your children, the
social contract is broken. You are not just protesting
for an idea. You are protesting for your survival.
Exactly. Bread is life. It grounds the politics
in the belly literally. It reminds me that revolutions
do not just happen because people read political
theory. They happen because people are hungry,
hungry for food and hungry for dignity. And that
hunger. creates a very real physical risk. This
is where I think El -Shab does something incredibly
brave. It would have been very easy for Nasser
to make these figures look heroic. You know,
chests out flags waving perfect, untouchable
revolutionaries. Like the old propaganda posters
we have all seen. Right, but he didn't do that.
When you look closely at these 25 figures, they
are not perfect. Some of them are bearing wounds.
They are actually injured. Yes. The artwork specifically
depicts the physical toll of the protest. that
is a stark choice for an artist to make it is
it acknowledges that this was not a parade it
was a conflict by including the wounds on these
ceramic bodies he is refusing to sanitize the
memory He is saying, yes, we stood together.
Yes, we demanded dignity. And yes, we bled for
it. It adds a layer of fragility that I think
is really important. We talked about the material
earlier. Ceramics. If I knock one of these figures
off the shelf, what happens? It shatters into
a dozen pieces. And human bodies are the same
way. That is the metaphor, isn't it? The medium
perfectly matches the message. The resolve of
the people might be strong, like fired clay is
hard, but it is also brittle. It can be broken
by force. It highlights the vulnerability of
a fleshy human body standing in front of a tank
or a police baton. It does. It is beautiful,
but it is also incredibly tense. You are looking
at them and you almost want to reach out and
protect them. Which brings us to the part of
the installation where that protection fails
completely. Yeah. We need to talk about the other
shelf, because up until now we have been talking
about the shelf of hope or the shelf of unity.
But there is a separate shelf in this installation,
and the tone there is not about unity at all.
It is about trauma. This is the turning point
of the work. If the first shelf is the chant
that people want, the second shelf is a regime's
answer. This part depicts a specific incident.
It is known as the girl in the blue bra. A moment
that went absolutely viral globally. Can you
describe what is actually happening on this shelf
for the listener? Because the description we
have from the sources is gut -wrenching. It is
violent. The porcelain figures here depict a
woman. She is a limp body lying on the ground.
She is not standing like the others. She has
been knocked down. And she is being dragged.
Dragged by whom? By three officers. Specifically,
our sources identify them as officers of the
Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
So you have three men in uniforms swarming one
unconscious woman. And they are stomping on her.
And in the chaos of this violence, as they are
dragging her abaya, which is her long conservative
outer garment, has been torn off or pulled up,
exposing her blue bra. It is such a shocking
violation. You have the conservatism of the abaya
contrasted with the vulnerability of the exposed
underwear all happening while she is being beaten.
It is an image of total helplessness and brutality.
And remember, this is also rendered in that same
delicate ceramic. That fee is jarring. To see
something that violent frozen in porcelain, porcelain
is what you make teacups out of. It is supposed
to be refined. That juxtaposition is the entire
point. If you saw this scene in a gritty news
clip, you might flinch and look away. But when
it is frozen in porcelain, it becomes an object
of contemplation. It forces you to stare at the
dynamic. You have the protectors of the state
actively assaulting one of the people they are
supposed to protect. Why do you think Nasser
separated the scene? Why not put her in the middle
of the cluster on the main shelf? I think it
is about focus. If she were just one of 26 figures,
she might get lost in the crowd. By isolating
her, he puts a spotlight on the violence. He
is saying you cannot celebrate the unity of the
first shelf without acknowledging the horror
of the second shelf. They are two sides of the
same coin. It is the shelf of violence staring
down the shelf of hope. And it represents the
specific gendered violence of the revolution,
too. It was not just a political struggle. For
women, it was often a struggle for bodily integrity
in public spaces. You mentioned this was based
on a viral video, and I think that is a crucial
detail for you listening to understand. This
did not come from the artist's imagination. Millions
of people watched this happen on YouTube or Facebook.
It was one of those moments that defined the
visual memory of the crackdown. But there is
a difference between a video and a statue, isn't
there? A video you watch for 30 seconds, you
feel sick, and then maybe you scroll down to
see a cat video or a news update. It disappears
into the feed. The digital world is fleeting.
It is ephemeral. It washes over you and then
it is gone. But by turning that video into a
sculpture, Nasser made it permanent. He solidified
it. Solidified it entirely. In the sculpture,
the soldier's boot never comes down. But it also
never stops threatening to come down. The woman
never gets up, but she also never disappears.
It freezes the trauma in tile. It creates a physical
archive of something the regime might have preferred
to be forgotten. It is a way of saying we saw
this and we are not going to let you delete it.
Precisely. It transforms a fleeting news cycle
into historical evidence. I want to zoom out
for a second and place this in time because the
timing of when this art was released is really
interesting to me. The big explosion in Tahrir
was January 2011. This piece, El Shah, was first
displayed in 2012. The year after. The morning
after, so to speak. That was the vibe in 2012.
It was a very complicated year. Based on the
historical context and our sources, it was the
year of Egypt's first democratic presidential
election. So on one hand, you had this incredible
high. The system was actually changing. People
were voting. Right. But on the other hand, you
had the realization of the cost. The economy
was struggling. The security situation was volatile.
And the trauma of incidents like the blue bra
beating was fresh. So the art is coming out right
in that messy middle. It is not looking back
from 10 years later with nostalgia. It is reporting
from the trenches of the transition. It captures
that specific anxiety. The hope of the elections
mixed with the memory of the beatings. Both things
were true at the same time. And tell me about
the exhibition where this was shown. The title
of the show itself feels like a commentary. It
was curated by Foss Cabra, and the exhibition
was titled No to the Invasion Breakdowns and
Side Effects. Breakdowns and Side Effects. Wow,
that sounds almost clinical, like a medical diagnosis.
It does, doesn't it? It suggests that the revolution
was not just a victory, it was a systemic shock,
a breakdown. And the violence, like the blue
bra incident, that was a side effect. It frames
the whole event, not as a fairy tale, but as
a painful, necessary, messy procedure. And where
is the piece now? Has it stayed in Egypt? No,
it has moved. As of 2022, it is part of the Bargeal
Art Foundation's collection. And we know it has
been displayed at the Salsali Private Museum
in Dubai. So it has left the street. It left
the site of the trauma and entered the world
of the museum. Which is the natural life cycle
of revolutionary art. It starts as a scream and
it ends up as a lesson. It becomes a way for
future generations and for people like us looking
at it from the outside to understand what happened.
It is funny we started this deep dive talking
about textbooks and wide -angle photos, but I
feel like I understand the emotion of 2011 better
looking at these clay figures than I do reading
a timeline of events. Because the timeline tells
you what happened. The clay tells you who it
happened to. It brings it back to the bodies.
History is just bodies. It is people standing
together and people getting hurt. Elshab strips
away the politics and the rhetoric and just leaves
you with the human beings. The 25 standing tall
and the one lying on the ground. And the simple
desires that drove them. I keep coming back to
bread equals life. It is such a grounding thought.
We can get so caught up in the ideologies of
these conflicts. But at the end of the day, it
is usually about someone saying, I want to live
with dignity. I want to eat. Yeah. I want to
be free. And I do not want to be beaten. It is
the most basic human contract. And this artwork
shows us what happens when people demand that
contract be honored. It is a powerful reminder.
You know these figures are small, just 27 centimeters,
but the shadow they cast is huge. And heavy.
You asked earlier, can a piece of pottery hold
the weight of a revolution? I think the answer
is yes. I think so, too. It holds it because
it refuses to look away from the ugly parts.
It gives us the beauty of the people, but it
forces us to look at the girl in the blue bra,
too. And that is the definition of an honest
memory. Before we wrap up, I want to leave you
listening with something to chew on, something
to explore on your own. We live in an era that
is obsessed with the now, the refresh button,
the live stream. We consume trauma in real time,
pixels on our feeds, but pixels die, servers
crash, links rot. But ceramics last. Archaeologists
are still digging up pottery from thousands of
years ago. Exactly. So here's the question for
you to mull over. How does turning a viral video,
which is something designed to be watched and
forgotten, into a static, physical object change
how we remember a revolution? Does the act of
making it physical make it more real than the
video itself? Does it force us to reckon with
it in a way a screen never could? I think it
might. It is a lot harder to scroll past a statue
standing right in front of you. Indeed. Thank
you so much for guiding us through this. It is
a heavy topic, but an important one. It was a
privilege to discuss it. And thank you to everyone
listening. We will see you on the next deep dive.