Why Khartoum – Beirut?

Khartoum was not a city of solid modernity at the beginning of the twentieth century, so it seemed as if there was another model that was more powerful and capable of forming cognitive and intellectual patterns that contradicted its social nature. Some Sudanese began to be sent to other cities for university education, and the American University of Beirut was a very important station. The thinkers of the first era of modernity, as they were called, appeared in political and social literature, such as Muawiyah Muhammad Nour (1901-1941). Nour received his education (AUB) for three years and obtained a literature degree. Nour also wrote a group of literary articles in a number of newspapers, such as Muawiyah’s experience in Beirut was an important milestone for Sudanese modernity, which did not stop, as he studied symbols of the national movement, such as Ismail Al-Azhari, the first Prime Minister of Sudan, also at the American University in Beirut. During the same period in which Muawiyah Nour was studying.

Extended Cities is the artistic residency of The Muse multi studios, an integrative regional organization committed to making art accessible through collaborative projects that respond to cultural and social contexts. Conceived as a space for experimentation and dialogue, the residency investigates the layered relationships between cities and nations, while addressing themes of history, literature, memory, construction, and destruction.

The first edition of Extended Cities focuses on Beirut and Khartoum—two capitals whose histories, while distinct, are deeply entangled in questions of modernity, education, and intellectual exchange. Khartoum, at the turn of the twentieth century, lacked the consolidated structures of modern urban life. As a result, Sudanese students were often sent abroad for higher education, with Beirut emerging as a central destination.

By drawing on these intertwined histories, Extended Cities seeks to explore how cities embody memory and movement, how they intersect across cultural, political, and intellectual geographies, and how art can serve as a means of reimagining those crossings. Beirut and Khartoum thus become more than locations—they are sites of negotiation, translation, and imagination, where histories of migration, exchange, and aspiration converge into new artistic possibilities.