6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Sinai Bedouin women share their heritage stories in stop motion at British Council - Heritage special
Sinai Bedouin women showcased heritage stories during the Story Telling for All exhibition, held over the weekend at the British Council in Cairo.
The exhibition showcases several stop-motion films that 27 young Bedouin women from Dahab and Saint Catherine created from scratch. Handmade maquettes, storyboards, and signature handmade embroidery adorned the exhibition hall.
Jessica Jacobs, researcher and geographer at Queen Mary University in London, explained that the exhibition is the outcome of research on the use of handicrafts and filmmaking as a methodology for exploring heritage tourism, homemaking, and community engagement in the UK, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, with a focus on Bedouin women.
"I have been working in Sinai for almost 30 years, and this exhibition is a follow-up to a project we did in Wadi Faynan, Jordan, between 2019 and 2022," Jacobs told Ahram Online.
The stop-motion films reflected the daily life of Bedouin women in Sinai and highlighted key events in their heritage. These films portrayed wedding rituals, the Bedouin coffee setup, women's life journeys, and fishing rituals. However, some young women artists highlighted in the maquettes how a woman named Om Saad was happily living alone in her own house – a bold statement against the prevailing culture.
At the heart of the exhibition stood a huge traditional Bedouin dress, the front of which was hand-embroidered by Gemeaa, a very popular and skilled Indigenous Bedouin artist. Other Bedouin women made the back, which was designed as a geographic depiction of Sinai, mapping the locations of flora and fauna scattered around the region.
The women of Fan Sina, a handicraft project and local partner, sew the dress. Fan Sina, which translates to the Art of Sinai, is a creative economy initiative that promotes Bedouin women's empowerment in Saint Catherine.
"Through Fan Sina Company, I started with five women, and now we have grown into 450 women in 19 groups. We would drive into the mountains to collaborate with them," explained Salima El Gebaly, founder of Fan Sina, to Ahram Online.
Born and raised in Saint Catherine, El Gebaly explained that she has always admired embroidery and finds her hometown deeply inspirational.
"Saint Catherine is a beautiful town. When you go to the mountains, you feel there is life, as if the mountain is talking to you. You find almond and fig trees, and grapes growing from the heart of the mountain, which impacts the souls of the people living there, especially the women, and makes them natural artists. When they see the beauty around them, they transform it through thread and needle into handwoven patterns—on their dresses, the sugar sacks they keep for their husbands on the backs of camels, and the bags of shepherds. She draws nature from her perspective—you might find 200 or 300 different shapes of the almond tree.
Due to modernity, people have stopped wearing these traditional garments. Hence, the idea of preserving such ancient heritage and using it to generate revenue for Sinai women emerged," she concluded.
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