Decaying Bank: Reproducing Khartoum Visually
Residency Project
2022 – 2024
WHAT IS LITERATURE?
“There was nothing left but the small shrouds that were stacked on the boards in the width of the walls, as if they were mugs containing the remains of the dead.”
Jean Paul Sartre
Decaying Bank: Reproducing Khartoum Visually is a residency project that attempted to engage with Khartoum from an artistic approach. During this residency, there were many creative and research interventions on the history of Khartoum and its social space, with a cross-disciplinary methodology in which the points from which we saw the city intertwined. The residency resulted in a group of visual works created by the hands of 6 Sudanese visual artists, along with critical interventions to understand the city and reproduce it visually.
The project represents an artistic residency that seeks to work on Khartoum city on two levels. The first is a research production on Khartoum and its representations in visual art, and then reconstruct a model from which a different visual production exudes, based on the critical view that was provided through the critical engagement that takes place. Through this, works will be produced (A group of visual artworks) carrying these themes.
Resident Artists
Elhassan Elmuontasir
Elhassan is an independent artist, designer, and artist-run space manager with a background in Graphic Design, technical education, International relations, and Fine art. He co-founded ‘ Khaish Studio’ in Khartoum in 2012 and, since then, has been a part of various art collaborative exhibitions and artist residencies with artists, curators, and art centres in Sudan and other countries, including Uganda, India, Germany, Kenya, and Nigeria.
Mozafar Ramadan
Mozafar is a fine arts graduate who is now working as a graphic designer in Khartoum. He has participated in many group exhibitions and workshops and had a solo exhibition in Arweqa for Art and Science in 2012.
Shaima Hashem
Shaima, a painter, believes that art is a way of self-discovery and the process of creating as a search for herself in the world around her.
Abdalsalam Alhaj
Abdalsalam is a visual artist and VR producer focusing on immersive media, audiovisual, and AR/VR as vehicles for storytelling and self-expression. He is the founder of Rift Digital Lab, a creative immersive agency focusing on AR/VR, podcasts, and audiobooks.
Hassan Kamil
Hassan is a storyteller who uses still and motion imagery as a medium to tell humanitarian, historical and cultural stories. Over the past five years, he developed a style consisting of colourful & energetic imagery projecting the essence and feel of the Sudanese culture. He is a member of the African Photo Journalism Database (APJD). Hassan worked for international & regional publications.
Matche Jaafar
Born and raised in Khartoum, Sudan, Metche Jaafar is an architect, freelance Photographer, visual artist, and storyteller with a deep interest in Folklore, Art, and culture. Influenced by the work of Mary Ellen Marks and so many others, she fell in love with photojournalism and documentary photography. Based in Khartoum, she’s interested in documenting social, political, and women’s issues. Through storytelling, she’s documenting for herself first and the people around her, creating and implementing history and heritage, and having a good understanding of emotions, Ideas, and incidents inside and around her. Her work has been showcased in multiple group exhibitions inside and outside Sudan.
Residents Gallery
Exhibition Photos
Exhibited at ARD Art Institution in Garden City, Cairo, Egypt between the 12th to the 18th of January 2025.
The Book
Decaying Bank: Reproducing Khartoum Visually, is the result of a residency project that attempted to engage with Khartoum from an artistic approach. During this residency, there were many artistic and research interventions on the history of Khartoum and its social space, with a cross-disciplinary methodology, in which the points from where we saw the city intertwined. Throughout this book you will find a group of artworks that were created by the hands of 6 Sudanese visual artists; along with critical interventions to understand the city and reproduce it visually.
Project Team
This project is funded by AFAC – Arab Fund For Arts And Culture