Hindered Absence

Hanya Elghamry

Summary
Final work

Hanya is a multidisciplinary visual artist from Cairo, Egypt, working in a variety of media. She received her BAs in Visual Arts and Integrated Marketing Communication with distinction. Hanya has participated in several group exhibitions in London and Cairo, where she worked as a Senior Assistant Curator at an art institution for four years. She is currently studying for her MA Fine Arts at Central Saint Martins, UAL.

Hanya is a multidisciplinary visual artist from Cairo, Egypt, working in a variety of media. She ...

CollegeCentral Saint Martins
CourseMA Fine Art

Our skin can "remember" the mutations of the moments it has suffered. In the process of remembering, we may create a space where we can probe our identities vis-à-vis the world, discussing the illusions created by our memories which are nearly always based on fragments of our reality. My work exposes the metaphorical that hides beneath the physical, the one representing society, its customs, traditions, conventions, and factors conditioning it. The installation draws attention to memories in a forgotten state, and the failure to track down the absent moments that are very evident in one's personal and cultural history.

Final work

The work looks and feels like skin and clothes, as if our physical surroundings was stripped bare.

Sound piece of Hindered Absence

Echoed family conversations and laughter, reminiscing on the memories that took place in the abandoned family house of 10 years in Cairo, Egypt.

Excerpt from Hindered Absence's research

”Skin remembers no matter how many years go by, Skin has lived, adapted, morphed and became. Skin knows what happened, and it knows why and how it happened. There is a power dynamic between skin and memory, as Memory knows how attractive it is to forget, and it seduces Skin to make it forget. But what Memory does not know is that the Skin might decide one day to remember.”