The Egypt Season: Pharaoh Friday Ashmolean Museum 18 November 5pm-8pm

Pharaoh Friday on the 18 November at the Ashmolean Museum welcomes a diverse range of talented artists and performers to Oxford. Egypt has inspired so many generations in so many ways - with the centenary of the re-discovery of King Tutankhamun's Tomb in November 1922, we have brought together artists and researchers to commemorate Egypt and its influence on the world around it. 

Part of the Being Human Festival

The King Tut Collective. Artists include Rania Hedia El Agame Raine. Rania shares her emotional journey during the process of creating her art for the exhibition.

‘Mourning 40 Days: In the early hours of the 26.7.2022, my beloved father, Sayed El Agami, passed away in my arms with my husband & best friend by my side’

Deconstruction: The fabric and myself returned from a journey of more than 1000 miles, and on every part of my travels, the song last played to my father would pop onto the radio, freaking us all out. While we cried, we would laugh hard as we drove through some seriously scary parts of the alps, very much in the dark. I would secretly take out my pebbles and reassure myself that all was well. On my return, the 40 days were coming to an end, and slowly colour was slipping back into my life I slowly realised that the show must go on #kingtutankhamun 
As well as my work, I needed to start the ball rolling with finding other artists to participate in this grand event of the centennial of King Tutankhamun.
I started to cut into my fabric and add another colour, Turquoise, used to protect and shield. The fabric started to take shape using inspiration from the stripes on the death mask. The process itself was very different to my norm, but `i could hear one of my peer's voices remind me that its ok to work differently so I did. This was the beginning of the birth of the next steps.

The Mourners: The Drawing: At this stage of the creative process, the drawing and illustration of the appliquéd parts began. I started looking at various types of inspiration, looking at things related to ancient Egyptian projects I had worked on before as well as symbols related to mourning. I recalled one of my favourite images of the woman mourning in Ancient Egypt and went about creating all the women that had played a huge role in my father's life. His mother, his aunts, his wife, his daughters and his granddaughters and all those who loved him. I then started narrating the story of his love for my mother, his four children and his love for sugar, much like me.

Stich: The stitch process is my favourite!
There were two machines down, a lot of profanities, many broken needles, and thankfully no missing eyes. At one point, I was beginning to believe that the curse was real and that this weird jujjj was hurting my lovely sewing machine! I was going to pack it all in and give up. After much encouragement that the curse was not real, I put my superstition aside and started the embroidery process. I am still very much at it as we speak, but it is all good and in the polishing process.