Out Of The Circle Organization

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Out Of The Circle Organization

We are an Art Entity based in Cairo, Egypt.

We work on digital and new media art through Exhibitions, Art events, Art Residency and international promoting for North African artists. We connect Egyptian and North African artists to the global scene by helping them secure enriching opportunities abroad, and in turn organize artist residencies for international artists in Egypt. Out of the Circle also curates exhibitions and festivals on several scales, while also providing arts management and curatorial support to other artistic entities in Egypt. In parallel, we also conduct ongoing research projects and compile databases on digital and new media art to better understand and support these mediums. We will keep you updated here with our news, open calls, and opportunities for New Media and digital art in Egypt and the region.

07/09/2026

APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN - YOUR GATEWAY TO NEW ARTISTIC EXPERIENCES WITHIN EGYPT’S LIFE, ART AND CULTURE.

Take the opportunity to evolve your artistic research project in the captivating heart of the country. Let our Cairo Artist’s Residency introduce you to Egyptian and North African’s exciting cultural scene.

Out Of The Circle is now inviting applications for our 2027 Artist’s Residency from artists based outside of Egypt.

Get personalised support to boost your creative research project over the course of three to eight weeks, as well as:

✨A sunny apartment with studio space in the heart of Cairo
✨A local art guide to accompany you into the city’s art and cultural scene
✨A custom itinerary of things to see and do personally designed to contribute to your research and artistic growth
✨Dedicated meetings with local professionals in your field (according to availability)
✨The opportunity to arrange a one-night end-of-residency event, in the case of a residency of four weeks or more

Find more information on our bio.

Apply through the link in our bio by 🔷9th October 2026 🔷

Photo No1 credit: OOTC from previous artists-in-residences activities (1.Sarvesh Singh- India, 2. Aida Schweitzer- Luxembourg, 3. Roshan Ganu - India/USA and Morgan Ford, USA). Photo No.2 credit: by Sarah Pannell, previous artist-in-residence from Australia, OOTC studio, 2025, Cairo. Res Artis

30/06/2026

We believe that great art start with space, time, and the right kind of curiosity. This July, we’re honored to have Sarvesh Singh, one such voice.

Sarvesh is a spatial designer and multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans research, curation, and synthesis. Based between Vadodara and Goa, India, he investigates modalities of resilience and memory, as materially responsive to the corroding legacy of colonial institutions, in adaptive reuse for both buildings and regenerative landscapes.

His recent projects Museum of Colonial Violence reflect a curatorial initiative for documenting critical cultural histories from the subaltern perspective, while An-Other Trash Culture extends this inquiry into landscapes as archives, situated within the European heartland.

With works showcased internationally, he has been part of conferences, residencies and exhibitions at Sadhana del Arte, AADK Blanca, AiR-Niederosterreich Wachau, Space Studio Alembic and Peking University.

As a professional educator, he also teaches computation, architecture and history.

During the residency, Sarvesh is loosely tracing the lineage of architectural evolution in Cairo – identifying building typologies by specific cultures, eras and programmes - aggregated into a speculative archive of anachronistic hybrids with divergent characters, stabilised through mixed media representation.

funlabspace

10/05/2026

We are thrilled to welcome this month Farah Salem our new artist in residence. 🤍

Farah is an interdisciplinary artist and somatic art therapist; these two practices exist independently, yet are intertwined as her professional training informs her artistic inquiry of how trauma manifests in the body. Her visual arts practice rooted in photography expands through video, performance and installation finding subtle affinities between geologic time, somatic movement, gendered trauma, and Arabian Peninsula ceremonial healing rituals. Through relational merging and mapping of human and geologic bodies, she envisions their liberation by examining themes of agency, making the invisible visible, and the potential erosion of socio-cultural conditioning.

She holds an MA in Art Therapy and Counseling from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Farah’s work has been featured at Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), Expo Chicago Art Fair, Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago) American University Museum Katzen Art Center (Washington DC), Patel Brown (Toronto), United Photo Industries (New York), Centro Cultural De Santa Cruz (Bolivia), Paris Contemporary Art Fair. Farah is the recipient of the 2024 3Arts Award, and is the 2017 Laureate Winner: International Women Photographers Award.

During her residency, Farah will be deepening her research into healing rituals of the Arabian Peninsula which spread through migration and cross-cultural exchange, centering a relationship with the earth. She will be looking into aspects of healing rituals which rely on objects crafted through local materials and techniques—fiber, clay, pigment, metal, and natural matter—each carrying symbolic and healing resonance. Her aim is to broaden and enrich her current study with new perspectives beyond the Arabian Peninsula. She is particularly interested in how these practices connect land, body, and material, and how they evolve across geographies, migrations, and ecological change.

Welcome, Farah. We can’t wait to see where this research takes you. ✨

Portrait photo credit: Tamara Hijazi

24/04/2026

It is a pleasure having Liina Leo with us this month at Out Of The Circle.

Liina Leo is an Estonian multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the transformative power of the unseen. Her practice navigates liminal spaces between life and death, light and darkness, dreams and reality.

She holds a BA in Textile Design from the Estonian Academy of Arts and an MA in Contemporary Photography from Central Saint Martins. Liina approaches image-making as an alchemical process, focusing on its hidden material conditions rather than representation alone. Through site-specific performances, photography, and moving image, she reflects on experiences of alienation — using ritual as a tool for transformation and the search for self-identity.

This month, Liina’s research engages with ancient sites and the rapidly transforming urban landscape of Cairo. Through this encounter with both past and present, she critically explores the symbolic and esoteric dimensions of cultural memory, focusing on storytelling, beliefs, and rituals surrounding the afterlife.

14/04/2026

Out Of The Circle is thrilled to be participating in Supermarket, Stockholm Independent Art Fair.

Supermarket is a vibrant platform that brings together art initiatives from around the world.

At SUPERMARKET 2026, Out of the Circle presents ‘Light Node’, an exhibition by Aya El Fallah, Esraa Elfeky, and Mina Nasr, curated by Elham Khattab.

Through painting, drawing and digital media, the artists explore storytelling as a source of light and resilience, where hope and belonging shine through uncertainty.

Come visit us at Out Of The Circle booth from 23 - 26 April in Supermarket independent art fair!

Supermarket Art Fair Esraa Ismail Elfeky Aya Elfallah Mina Nasr

22/03/2026

We are so happy to have Fatima Lahham with us at Out of the Circle this month! 🎉

Fatima is a musician and researcher based in South-East London, UK. Her work embraces improvised music on the recorder and with her voice, research using creative and participatory methods, and facilitation work creating spaces for people to make and sound together. Her solo recorder album bulbul on FS Records draws on improvisation and poetry to tell stories about birds, voices, home, and the spaces in between.

Currently a Hallsworth Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, Fatima is working on a project called Carrying Each Others’ Hearts with Our Ears, about music-making practices, community and healing justice. Her first book, Improvising Otherwise, was published in 2025.

✨ About her residency:
Fatima joined us in March 2026 to develop a new project combining sound, visual art, and creative research. She is experimenting with how sound and music can be represented in zines—drawing inspiration from the dafatir (notebooks) tradition used in the works of Dia al-Azzawi and other Iraqi artists, who created folding notebooks that expand and contract, containing words alongside artwork.

During her time in Cairo, Fatima is diving into the local zine scene, creating field recordings across the city, and making recordings of her own improvisations in different spaces. Through collage, sketching, and printing, she is crafting sound(ing) maps that can be read, looked at, and listened to—inviting creative experiences of time, space, and sound.

We can’t wait to see where this exploration takes her! 🗺️🎧

Her arts residency is supported by the University of Manchester.

13/01/2026

We are pleased to announce the artistic residency for composer and conductor W***y Merz. With a significant career spanning Europe, Merz has established himself as a versatile and committed figure in contemporary music.

Merz studied composition under Goffredo Petrassi and Franco Donatoni, and conducting under Ferdinand Leitner, in Milan, Siena, and Paris. His recognition includes winning the International Composition Competition in Freiburg i. Ue. His music has been performed by artists such as Thomas Demenga, Alexander Lonquich, and Cecilia Gasdia, and by ensembles including the Camerata Bern and the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. His work is further documented through CD releases on the Stradivarius and Almendra labels, and he has held composer-in-residence positions at institutions including the Cité des Arts in Paris.

A core tenet of his work is the goal to “recreate a relationship between the contemporary artist and the society and community around him.” This arts residency in Cairo is a direct extension of this philosophy, aiming to “create a link across the Mediterranean, promote musicians from the Arab classical tradition, and develop joint projects”—a continuation of his collaborative work as artistic consultant for the Egyptian Museum in Turin.

During this residency, Merz will engage with the Egyptian soundscape to inform new compositions. These developments are intended to contribute to future programming season at the Fondazione Merz in Turin, where he serves as Artistic Director for music.

***yMerz

16/12/2025

We are delighted to welcome artist Wendell Smith as our December Artist-in-Residence.

Smith, who holds an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design, is known for his practice of moderating intercultural dialogues between the Caribbean and North America. His distinguished career is marked by significant honors including a Fulbright Scholarship, an Artist Fellowship Grant, and a Puffin Foundation Emerging Artist Grant. He has further developed his global perspective through residencies in Havana, Mexico City, Athens, and Colombia, and his scholarly research on arts curriculum design has been published in academic journals. Publications include: Calabash: A Journal of Caribbean Arts and Letters, Journal of Africana Studies and Seadly, New Art International. His scholarly activities focused on research into the design of curriculum for Caribbean higher education in the arts to meet the needs of the global art market. It has been published by Caribbean Educational Research Journal.

His work probes the questions of existence, the human relationship to both the interior (psychological) and exterior (physical) worlds that define our fundamental human experience. As an observer to the drama of human history, narratives of survival, love, and power to endure are at the heart of his expression.

We are honored to welcome Wendell Smith!

Address

Cairo

Website

https://linktr.ee/outofthecircle

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