‘An intellectual magpie whose text-heavy works bristle with political ideas..’
The New Yorker Magazine
Adham Hafez is an award winning curator, theorist, historian and an artist working in the fields of choreography, public and digital art, expanded cinema, sound and text. His work has been presented widely in the Arabic Speaking Region, Europe, and in the US.
Recent curatorial project: New York Arab Festival
Latest curatorial project and production: Expo 2025, Saudi Arabian Pavilion, Music and New Media
Partners: HaRaKa Platform, Wizara, La Mama Theater, Museum of Moving Image, and other partners
April and May 2025
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Upcoming curatorial projects: Intermedia, music and expanded performance programs
Expo 2025: Osaka, Kansai
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Recent Performances: Ouroboros
Live audio-visual and choreographic performance
Hebbel Am Ufer Theater, HAU1, Berlin
ONGOING RESEARCH AND CURATORIAL PROJECTS
“In 50 Years Or So”
Since 2019, and for the past 6 years, Adham Hafez has been leading a team of artists, researchers and experts in the fields of urban planning, choreography, design and translation to study the history of the Red Sea’s cultures, marine and wildlife and the urban changes around this shared body of water. The project started by studying the impact of the Suez Canal on the history of performance. The research aims to contribute to art history and performance studies methods, by addressing the aesthetic regimes through the lens of the Anthropocene. It has presented newly commissioned installations, curatorial projects, and publications across Sharjah, Cairo, London, Berlin and New York.
Adham Hafez, performing ‘Repeating Suez’
Lecture performance, part of ‘In 50 Years Or So’ project
Sharjah Architecture Triennial, 2019
“VIRTUALLY HUMAN”
Recurring platform dedicated to the intersection of digital tools with the study of presence and of performance. Inaugural edition June 2023, within the framework of ‘Virtually Human’, an international research project initiated and directed by Adham Hafez, project powered by Wizara Platform, Goethe Institut, Wolf Kino and partners.
Text contributions: Ammar Manla Hassan, Harashini Karunaratne, Ismail Fayed, Adham Hafez
Archival Image, ‘Virtually Human’ 2023 poster
A series of research labs curated around the notion of humanity and art, at times of virtual and digital advancement. Founded and curated by Adham Hafez.
CAIROGRAPHY PUBLICATION
Adham Hafez, Myriam Van Imschoot, and collaborators
Gent, Brussels, Cairo, New York
Adham Hafez is the founder of the Cairography Publication, dedicated to new theories on aesthetics, politics, and choreography from the Arabic Speaking Region. The publication, a joint project with Sarma (Brussels), was most recently in residency and in partnership with multiple institutions, including at the ‘Kunsthal Gent’ lately. Cairography’s core editorial team becomes the independent collective: Cairography Collective, thinking of alternative publishing tactics, conducting workshops on translation, creating anthologies, performing, and launching a new edition of Cairography in Summer 2025
PREVIOUS PROJECTS
TikTok Triptych, Digital Drawing by Mona Gamil
Commissioned for Cairography Publication
Copyrights: Mona Gamil
Cairography Publication
Emergency Edition
This special edition of Cairography addresses the multiple unfolding crises, from the global lockdowns, to colonial encroachments, as it anchors its texts within the unfolding events post-Beirut’s explosion of August 2020
Read Cairography here
Archival image, TransDance 2013 Poster
Featuring image of Egyptian actors Hind Rostom and Roshdy Abaza, from the film “Struggle on the Nile”. The 2013 edition was documented to the power of art in resisting erasure of archives and of collective memories.
TransDance Festival
2008-2015
Founded to bring dance to the intersection of new media, digital art, urban practice and storytelling, ‘TransDance’ was Cairo’s international festival of experimental dance and performance that took place between 2008 till its last edition in 2015, founded by curator and artist Adham Hafez. The festival took place at cities in Egypt, with satellite editions globally from New York to Marseilles.