the bee kingdom

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The Bee Kingdom (thebeekingdom.art) is a project by New York artist Joy Garnett. Through creative writing, painting, photography, printmaking, and social media, The Bee Kingdom asks how past, present, and future narratives can co-exist through the archive in its various forms.

 

Image: Annie and Zaky Abushady (ca.1921), part of a project for ‘Piss and Vinegar (art and ferment)’ at FOODshed, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn (Summer 2014). Curated by Amy Lipton.

The Bee Kingdom draws on research around the life and times of Garnett’s late grandfather, 20th century Egyptian modernist poet Ahmed Zaky Abushady (1892-1955).

AZA-Fridon original
Caricature of Abushady (1928), by the Persian Alexandrian artist Mohamed Fridon.
Alexandria, 1981
Slice of the Corniche, Alexandria, Egypt, July, 1981. Photograph: Joy Garnett.

“Immigrant Zero” by Maged Atiya (March 29, 2015) commemorates the anniversary of A.Z. Abushady’s death (April 12, 1955), and the plight of Egyptian liberal thinkers. Read it on his blog, SalamaMousa: reclaiming Egypt

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