During the British occupation of Egypt, in 1889, George Stephenson founded his pharmacy in downtown Cairo\u2014later purchased by Ehsan Samman and inherited by his son, Zoheir. At the March 2021 performative intervention, Scaffolding a Familiar Epoch, visual artist Yasmine El Meleegy tests the boundaries between architectural restoration, physical repair, and spiritual healing. The long-neglected pharmacy was transformed during the course of three months, with El Meleegy creating new objects to speak back to the space\u2019s historical legacy \u2014chandeliers, Stephenson-inspired vases, infographics\u2014while revitalizing old clocks, medicinal containers, and the pharmacy\u2019s fa\u00e7ade. The simultaneous renovation and introduction of novel, physical reminders of the past positions Stephenson\u2019s pharmacy between a still-functioning medical space and historical museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through an intervention that also included interviews, El Meleegy meshes the memory of her own and Samman family with the collective memory of downtown Cairo and colonial Egypt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During the British occupation of Egypt, in 1889, George Stephenson founded his pharmacy in downtown Cairo\u2014later purchased by Ehsan Samman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9234,"template":"","meta":[],"movie_genre":[239],"movie_tag":[541],"class_list":["post-9232","movie","type-movie","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","movie_genre-video","movie_tag-festivales-internacionales-2025-en"],"yoast_head":"\n