The Equality of Intelligence, Part 1 (2012)
Duration: 6:27 mins/ Single-screen, 16:9, HD, Digital video.
This video work was filmed on Tahrir Square, Cairo in December 2011. The film records a new revolutionary song, performed by a group of mostly young revolutionaries who have occupied the public space for almost a year. They performed the song a week after a crackdown by the military resulting in the death of eleven others like them. The video explores and relates a sense of the idealism they embody as they struggle to find democracy for the future of Egypt and importantly themselves. Tahrir Square Cairo is a place where Egyptians of every class gather to support each other and negotiate a new future. A few hundred live there permanently whilst others visit to express solidarity with the protest movement. The video work displays the everyday business of revolution outside of the media gaze as they sing to lift morale and maintain the resistance. The video probes this idea of revolution, both as personal and collective struggle, in an unembellished way, carefully observing the protagonists in the scene. The video interweaves these class tensions to offer a personal insight and portrait of politics in action.
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