The Sky Above Us
11 December 2022
- 01 January 2023
Alexandria, Egypt, Egypt
Conference Center, Delegates Hall
URL:
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina Antiquities Museum, affiliated to the Cultural Outreach Sector, in collaboration with the French-Egyptian Center for the Study of the Temples of Karnak (CFEETK), organizes an event entitled “The Sky above us”, on Sunday, 11 December 2022; at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Conference Center, Delegates Hall. The event also includes the inauguration of the temporary exhibition “The Sky Above Us” at the West Exhibitions Hall. The exhibition will continue until 1 January 2023.
Three lectures will be held alongside “The Sky Above Us” exhibition to present the CFEETK activities. The first lecture will be delivered by Dr. Ahmed Altaher and Dr. Luc Gabolde, both co-directors of the CFEETK. The photographer Émilie Saubestre, Director of the Photography and Multimedia Department in Karnak will deliver the second lecture, focusing on both the aims and challenges she faces during her work. The last lecture will be delivered by Timothée Sassolas, engineer in photogrammetry, revealing both the techniques and methods he applies to the Hieroteka 3D project supported by the CFEETK and the Montpellier University.
“The Sky Above Us” exhibition features the work of Émilie Saubestre (French, b.1986), who proposes to place contemporary creation out of the archive of Henri Chevrier as a focal point to observe the bonds between photography and researchers at the CFEETK. In her series of photographs “The Sky Above Us” (2019), Saubestre refers to both the history of the archeology photography and the contemporary photography appropriation. She also reframes archive images from Henri Chevrier, an architect who coordinated the researches and restorations of the Temple of Karnak between 1926 and 1954, on behalf of the Egyptian Antiquities Service.
Saubestre explores the production and the use of photographs in both archeology and Egyptology fields, and thus proposing to open the cultural heritage documentary photography to the art practices. The pictures presented drawn on excavation activities to allude to poetic snapshot, playing with photographic conventions: subjects are unframing, chemical deterioration is highlighted, and traces from the past are revealed.