Cocoon is Here to Say Goodbye Za7ma, Hello Chakra Balancing

Ready to burst out of your cocoon? Located in Cairo’s infamous 1940 Immobilia building— home to cultural giants like Abdel Halim Hafez, Omar Al Sharif, and Mohamed Abdel Wahab  is downtown’s newest cultural centre, Cocoon. The new venue aims to bring a holistic wellness and arts revolution to the life of Cairenes in an effort to soothe the stress we experience everyday due to the hustle and bustle of the capital, ergo cocooning culture. “I think especially in Cairo,  a stressful environment filled with unnatural massive buildings, cars, and fumes—  I wanted to stress the importance of mental wellness because it is stigmatized and not promoted at all,” said co-founder Mariam Shaath. The contemporary holistic venue will officially open its doors on February 20th. 

The story began when Shaath, a fine arts and contemporary cultural theory graduate from the University of Leeds came back from the UK to kickstart her career in Cairo. The idea kickstarted when Shaath and her mother Nihal Soliman, the life coach behind You Better Fly, had an idea to repurpose her grandfather’s old downtown office into new space. Inspired by her work with Adef, an Arab digital expression NGO, who host numerous workshops for the underprivileged, the idea of intertwining her mother’s experience with wellness, and Shaath’s with arts, into a new workshop space for Cairenes came into birth. 

Shaath and Soliman decided to seek the help of photographer Randa Shaath, who conveniently happens to be Mariam’s aunt, to connect with professionals in the industry. Mona Emam who is an old coworker of Soliman’s, and Maysoon Mafdoudh, a distinguished writer and translator, soon after joined on to become co-founders and officially launch the project. 

Three rooms are curated to fit three themes: the blue room for wellness, the green room for cinematic arts, and the rainbow room for fine arts and crafts. The centre will host an array of workshops like fine arts, painting, collage making, comics, screenwriting, sound-healing, chakra balance, yoga, personal training, jewelry design, videography, calligraphy, life coaching, acting, and some classes like on Sufism and Ancient Egypt.

In addition to the various workshops that Cocoon will host, the space also will feature an in-house art gallery comprised of two rooms: one to feature a permanent collection, and another for experimental installations and exhibitions. “I want to experiment with the concept of liberal arts and break the stigma surrounding fine arts painting and photography in order to blur those lines, but also to Arabize these topics so that they’re accessible to Egyptians,” Shaath told us. You heard her, it looks like Cairo is set for a new arts and wellness hub for all those feeling like their creative and mental energies are getting slowly drained— to give you the right cocoon to be your best butterfly.