CHRA Alumni Spotlight: On Nubian Dispossession
Image courtesy of the artist.
CHRA graduate Leil Mortada Zahra is showing their The Land, not a film by Youssef Chahine as part of AL.Berlin’s 2025 AL.FESTIVAL. Zahra first developed the piece as the artistic component of their hybrid thesis project for the MA Program in Human Rights & Arts, which they graduated from in May 2025.
The Land, not a film by Youssef Chahine is an interactive installation originally created as the artistic component of a thesis project titled “Songs of Erasure: Nubian Dispossession in Arab Nationalist Culture” (2025). The project interrogates the role of Arab cultural production—particularly Egyptian songs and films about the Aswan High Dam—in shaping public history and contributing to Nubian dispossession. It builds on the artist’s ongoing collaboration with Nubian activists. The installation in particular examines Egyptian state propaganda and confronts the failures of Arab liberation movements, while centering a Nubian narrative.
AL.Berlin is “a cultural collective and platform based in Berlin since 2019, dedicated to creating spaces of encounter through music, art, and critical exchange” that is “rooted in the contemporary cultures of South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) and its many diasporas.”
Click here to view the festival description of the installation.
Post Date: 10-01-2025
The Land, not a film by Youssef Chahine is an interactive installation originally created as the artistic component of a thesis project titled “Songs of Erasure: Nubian Dispossession in Arab Nationalist Culture” (2025). The project interrogates the role of Arab cultural production—particularly Egyptian songs and films about the Aswan High Dam—in shaping public history and contributing to Nubian dispossession. It builds on the artist’s ongoing collaboration with Nubian activists. The installation in particular examines Egyptian state propaganda and confronts the failures of Arab liberation movements, while centering a Nubian narrative.
AL.Berlin is “a cultural collective and platform based in Berlin since 2019, dedicated to creating spaces of encounter through music, art, and critical exchange” that is “rooted in the contemporary cultures of South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) and its many diasporas.”
Click here to view the festival description of the installation.
Post Date: 10-01-2025
