Cross-Pollination on Baraza

 

Fig. 5: Drawing by Sayed Ibrahim (n.d.)

 

Cross-Pollination

Joy Garnett

My short article on Abushâdy and hybridity has been posted to Baraza, a meeting space for critical collaboration run by graduate students in the department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) at Columbia University:

 

"This week on Baraza, we're buzzing with excitement over Joy Garnett's essay on the archive of her maternal grandfather, the well-known Egyptian poet and beekeeper Ahmed Zaki Abushady. Edited by Rosa Klein-Baer, Garnett's piece explores some of the cross-pollination between Abushady's diverse intellectual, artistic, and scientific pursuits."

 

Excerpt:

...The variety of the illustrations contained in Abushâdy’s publications, as well as the artworks preserved in his archive, indicate an interchangeability of roles and the blurring of genres for artists working in Egypt in the 1930s and 40s. As I thumb through Apollo, I am struck by the eclectic nature of the illustrations, which include reproductions of fine drawings, caricatures, cartoons, and color plates. Likewise, in the pages of The Bee Kingdom, we find numerous small line drawings. When I first discovered these drawings, which are remarkably stylized, I assumed they were unsigned elements of graphic design produced by the same anonymous hand. On closer inspection, I found each piece to contain the minuscule signature of the celebrated Egyptian calligrapher Sayed Ibrahim (1897-1994) (Fig.5). Ibrahim was a member of Apollo’s Society, producing copious illustrations for Abushâdy’s many publications, including Apollo, as well as poetry. [...]