Iftar

2004

Iftar is a video installation which addresses several controversial issues regarding religion, tradition and social class. The complete installation was first exhibited in a solo exhibition in 2004 at the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo. The video has since been shown abroad in exhibitions in Sweden, Denmark and South Africa. It was screened at the Tate Modern in the spring of 2007 and also featured in the Recognise exhibition of Middle Eastern Art in London during the summer of 2007. Iftar has also been shown as part of the Townhouse Gallery’s partnership in Museum As Hub at the New Museum in New York and has most recently been screened at the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago in 2011.

Ayman Ramadan uses Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper as a reference

point for the video Iftar. When he first came across a picture of the

famous painting, the artist noticed how much it resembles the Islamic

breaking of the daily sunrise-to-sunset fast (’Iftar’ in Arabic) during the

Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He then sought the story behind the

painting and concluded that the similarites between Da Vinci’s Last Supper

and the tradition of Iftar with which he was so familiar are not merely

visual. Having spent most of his life in Egypt where religious strife is a

daily concern, Da Vinci’s painting struck Ramadan as a powerful tool to

underline one of the most important aspects of the Abrahamic religious

tradition, which promotes the notions of equality and social justice.

Each afternoon during the month of Ramadan, workers throughout the

cities and towns abandon their activities and gather for Iftar. They sit at

public tables in the streets where free food is provided for all those who

either cannot afford the meal or are transient workers who have come to

the city from the villages. It is a humble affair that brings together the

city’s poorest as they ease their hunger in celebration of their faith.

For his video, Ramadan invited 12 workers from a backstreet in Downtown

Cairo to re-enact an Iftar. The piece slowly unfolds as the meal is consumed

quietly in a naturalistic manner. The power of the video is not in dramatic

movement or editing. It lies in the layers of religious tension emanating

from the clear reference to a Christian artist’s depiction of a group of pre-Christians dining in a scene that has, across both East and West, become

iconic. Further-more, its power stems from the unashamed acknowled-gement of the continuing existence of a poor working class in Egypt at

a time when many would deny that such poverty and deprivation persist.