Dismantling Modern Dystopias with Maghrabia Gallery's Garden of Freaks

We’re all freaks. There’s no shame in it. And it’s about time Cairo gets a freakshow of its own. A staple in Downtown Cairo’s art landscape, the Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art is collaborating for the seventh time with Egyptian artist Ahmed Sabry to present his latest series of works, titled ‘The Garden of the Freaks’.

There’s no room for Adam and Eve in this subversive wilderness; Sabry’s inspiration comes from his exploratory escapades into the mythical symbolism of the Middle and Dark Ages, an epoch about as far from the Garden of Eden as you can imagine. If anything, it more closely resembles people’s visions of an eerie dystopia.

Through his work, Sabry invites art-heads to contemplate on this concept of dystopia. Fascinated by Middle Age-inspired allegories that revolve around shapeshifting, Sabry applies these allegories to declining societies that he observes in the modern world. How, in the heart of it all, these societies strive to dehumanise its own people in a sort of metaphorical mutation that even Kafka would be proud of envisioning.

If you’re willing to peer into the mind-bending madness, you can catch the exhibition from now until June16th, 2021.