Artists: Arwa Abouon, Doa Aly, Rana El Nemr, Mona Marzouk

The figure/ground relationship is one of the basic rules of perception. The premise of the rule is that the figure in a painting or photograph is perceived as a structured entity over a shapeless background. Despite the totality of an image being visible to us, our perception focuses on the subject and accords it specificity, while viewing the ground as a generic, inactive and secondary compositional entity.

Artists Arwa Abouon, Doa Aly, Rana El Nemr and Mona Marzouk, each in their way re-visit the figure/ground relationship and give it new meaning in order to ‘activate’ the ground both perceptually and conceptually as an entity that shapes and is shaped by the figure. Indeed, the exhibition seeks to reveal the ground as anything but generic, exposing surroundings that are culturally loaded, gendered and sexually charged.