Be like the roaring flow of the river, uninterrupted by the croaking of frogs.

Yara Mekawei – 2021

Basis

Built in the sixties, it carries many characteristics of a modernist building. A plain combination of materials in use, glass and stone façades along with the lightweight steel elements. As it appears interesting to architects, it may not be so for the others. Especially, the odd-looking red cube that keeps stacks of magazines in dark. What is interesting is that the covering red travertine plates come from the same place as I do, thousands of kilometers away.

Farzad Golghasemi – April 2021

We are always enamored with love, especially when no love is in sight.

Yara Mekawei – 2021

Aloft

Once a friend told me that it has apartments on top and the owners can take their cars through its multi-level streets next to where they live. It also contains many shops and big firms. It sounds like a neighborhood. Are its streets stone-paved? Are skateboarders or kids playing around up there? How is it possible to visit? I should find a way to sneak into that black box!

Farzad Golghasemi – April 2021

Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.

Yara Mekawei – 2021

Construction

They say it caught on a massive fire in the late seventies so that it got destroyed entirely. I look at its photos from the past and they quite match with the present. And I wonder if the elements of the old have been used in constructing a new whole!

Farzad Golghasemi – April 2021

Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the wind of the heavens dance between you.

Yara Mekawei – 2021

Guardian

It stands at the end of a long harbor as a guardian, watching the piles of wood and timber through the wast water corridor. Helped its neighbors many times to cool down, it has always been ready to take action against the passive friction. Yet no longer as nimble as before, it is sitting there with tied hands as the platform for the customers who captured its glorious binoculars.

Farzad Golghasemi – April 2021

She is my heart, and everything it embraces, And I’m a mere passerby.
For me, she is my only heart’s desire. For her, I’m a mere passerby.

Yara Mekawei – 2021

Der Koloss

It is called der Koloss, and in the strictest sense of the word, it is colossal. It is so sizable that one loses the sense of own size. But, why is it so calm around? Where are the numerous actions owing to its existence? I can hear some distant noises that might spring from the new giant in its vicinity, displacing the business and shifting the flow.

Farzad Golghasemi – April 2021

Your appetite for passion turned out insatiable. Too impatient to be content with a single serving.

Yara Mekawei – 2020

Re-fuse

According to gravity, all things with mass or energy are brought toward one another. The Earth gravitates the moon and the humans on it, and the Moon causes the ocean tides. The massive concrete structure attracts my body and affects my emotions. I feel scared yet curious. It might be so because someone I know had a repellent childhood experience facing this dark old bulk, yet my curiosity is still there. It looks like that this confusion has been there for a long time as if the soil is disturbed by the outsider. Perhaps it belongs there after such a long time! It is hard to find the entrance, as it has none and so many. Impermeable and porous at once, it is designed to block extrinsic objects. Yet the locals are piercing constantly to inhabit, enfolding the fear and rage.

Farzad Golghasemi – March 2021

I only speak so you may see. If you can see, no words are needed.

Yara Mekawei – 2020

Hype

It is getting harder to clear my mind about it, as I am drinking my morning coffee. The caffeine stimulates my nerves after a long night with a manifold of dreams. And it is the same with this eclectic architecture, that it is getting hyped again by coffee, after many years of activity followed by a retirement period.

Farzad Golghasemi - 2021

Love is an archer, shooting arrows, I cannot see.
Love is a killer with no spear, slashing at me.

Yara Mekawei – 2020

Chunk

Standing there for a while, it is missing the old comrades. They used to stop by every once in a while, arriving and departing linearly, they reached each other out in the same direction, loading and unloading their chunks with materials.
I’m walking alongside it, feeling my memories stored in its chunks. But it moves faster than me, taking the memories away towards the vanishing point.

Farzad Golghasemi - 2021

Silent things do speak sometimes, whereas much of speaking doesn’t involve words.

Yara Mekawei - 2020

Proximity

Located just around the corner, in space it is immediate. Functioning as the foundation for an everydayness, it almost tries to hide from the spectators. As you get closer, the void gets deeper and the time folds, uncovering its counterpart sooner or later.

Farzad Golghasemi - 2021

Yara Mekawei
ist Komponistin elektronischer Musik und sound artist, sie lebt und arbeitet in Kairo. Nicht nur als produktive Künstlerin, auch in ihrer Lehrtätigkeit, lässt sich Mekawei in ihren Klangtüfteleien von Dynamik und Fluß urbanen Lebens inspirieren, ebenso von städtischer Infrastruktur.
Ausgehend von ihren Interessen für die Philosophie der Architektur, für Geschichte und Literatur arbeitet Mekawei mit akustisch-optischen Transfers, die ähnlich wie bei einem musikalischen ‚Gespräch‘ Schallwellen in eine visuelle Form übertragen. Ihre Arbeit legt Schall als Mittel zum Sehen zugrunde, die Maßgabe ihrer Kompositionen sind komplexe Verfahren, die geistige Inhalte für die Zuhörenden mitteilbar machen. Dabei legt Mekawei Konzepte zugrunde, die aus wissenschaftlicher Literatur zu sozial-gesellschaftlichen Theorien schöpfen.
Ihre Projekte verfolgt sie von einem Forschungsstandpunkt aus, der Arbeit und den Anderen – dessen Wirken zugleich einen nicht erfassbaren Teil ihrer Persönlichkeit bildet – vereinend berücksichtigt, ebenso wie ihr Leben als Frau in einer ostafrikanischen Gesellschaft.

www.yaramekawei.wixsite.com

Farzad Golghasemi
studierte Architektur an der Middle East Technical University in Ankara. Er praktizierte und lehrte architektonisches Design und 3D-Modellierung, bevor er den Masterstudiengang Digitale Medien an der Hochschule für Künste Bremen begann. Derzeit arbeitet er an der Entwicklung von Projekten, die sich mit der Kritik der städtischen Geographie und des Alltagslebens beschäftigen, indem er digitale Technologien wie das Web und mobile Geräte einsetzt. Er ist daran interessiert, phänomenologische Aspekte der Architektur und der gebauten Umwelt zu entdecken, indem er Methoden wie das Gehen anwendet.

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