The Futuristic Nostalgia Group
We are finally seeing the birth of a new artistic group committed to redefining the true meaning of the term ‘yearning’, replacing its traditional associations with the past in favor of a future-oriented kind of nostalgia that conveys certain elements: positive thinking, an affirmation of joyful sentiments, and a sense of hope in an attempt to restore Art to its rightful domain. This humanistic and innovative endeavor is fully capable of sparking an array of empathetic visual, imaginative, and expressive elements.
Ancient Egyptian culture successfully utilized Art not only to record life’s events and beliefs, but also, and more pertinently, to heighten sensitivity to the beauty of earthly life and to ease passage into the eternal afterlife. This approach to Art planted inside the Egyptian soul a sense of contentment, security, strength, nobility, and inner calm, all of which combined to reinforce the humanistic, spiritual, and just dimension of the Ancient Egyptian civilization.
Nevertheless, certain contemporaries follow a materialistic tendency to divert Art towards a mechanical, unfeeling, and contrived path. The end result of this approach is an art form that has stepped out of its natural role to become the wellspring of discontent, ambiguity, gloom, dreariness, and agitation, all in the name of disordered principles that alienate and even defile nature, capitalizing on delusions of novelty and distortion. Artists of this ilk have reduced Art to an inarticulate artisan level totally lacking in conviviality and solace, leading to a kind of degeneration of the collective spirit and, in turn, the spread of a kind of subversive war built on a hatred of life itself and a denial of man’s humanity.
These concerns underpin the rationale driving the direction of the Yearning for the Future Group. Its members differ from each other in many ways, yet they all unite in promoting a sense of yearning for the future which counters despair and regression, reinforcing feelings of optimism, hope, and joy. It is a yearning for a creativity that is pristine and harmonious with nature; one that is sorely needed not just for Egypt but for the whole world.
We are promoting a form of Art that is radiant, vivid, and utterly compelling because it has been stripped of all traces of arrogance, oppression, and restrictions. We have had enough of the technological intrusion into art; we are the sons and daughters of this land with its artistic legacy of drawing, sculpting, and innovating for more than five thousand years…As befitting this undertaking, we pledge ourselves once again to re-affirming the humanization of Art.
Cairo March 2015
Yasmine El-Hazek, Amina El-Demirdash, Carelle Homsy, Farghali Abdel-Hafiz