Art Jameel, Bayt Yakan deliver summer programme of traditional arts and crafts workshops to support community in Al-Darb Al-Ahmar, Cairo
Art Jameel is collaborating with Bayt Yakan, an arts collective centred around the eponymous traditional house in Old Cairo, to deliver a summer programme of workshops for children in the neighbourhood of Al-Darb Al-Ahmar.
The programme is led by Ola Said, co-founder of Bayt Yakan and an alumna and now tutor at the Jameel House of Traditional Arts / Cairo. Alongside Said, the workshops are delivered by Amal Mostafa, Mona Ezzat, Riham Wahba, Nermine Mostafa, Menna Hassan and other alumni of the Jameel House of Traditional Arts / Cairo, a joint project between Art Jameel, the Prince’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts and Egypt’s Cultural Development Fund.
The month-long programme comprises workshops for children and is free and open to all, with sessions held every Saturday, Monday and Wednesday at Bayt Yakan. The workshops include drawing geometric patterns, tessellations and 3D shapes, pottery-making , manuscript illumination and decoration, along with other traditional arts and crafts activities.
The summer programme aims to provide free, extracurricular opportunities for children from Al-Darb Al-Ahmar to explore the traditional arts and to engage with the rich heritage of Old Cairo. Workshops will draw on the architectural features of the historic buildings in the neighbourhood and introduce traditional approaches to design and making to participants.
This year’s programme follows the collaboration in 2017 between alumni of the Jameel House of Traditional Art / Cairo and Megawra, a creative hub, to support children in Al-Khalifa neighbourhood in Old Cairo. The 2017 programme’s success and high demand has led to the expansion of this year’s programme, which runs for the whole month of July.
Details of the different workshops are available on the Facebook page of the alumni of the Jameel House of Traditional Arts / Cairo, and Bayt Yakan is located in Al-Darb Al-Ahmar. The summer programme opened on July 2 and runs until July 30, 2018. Bayt Yakan is in Al-Darb Al-Ahmar at 3 Haret Hassan Agha, off Souq El Silah Street, near Hammam Bashtak and 5 minutes’ walk from Sultan Hassan Mosque.
