Enter through a polythene maze, on which are hung photographs, with brief texts, of rooms. Rows of chairs shrouded with dust cloths, a great deal of floral repeat fabric, and a level of dereliction that recalls the Viennoise. This, presumably, is grandmother's house. And then through a curtain, into a third room, in the centre of which are six of the chairs that appear in the photographs, at the windows of which are hanging the floral repeat curtains from the photographs. Family members talk about grandmother on a video loop.
Death drags the most cloyingly banal statements into excruciating relief.
Having been turned into an unwitting voyeur, there is no get out clause in decrying the sentimental. The chairs in the centre of the space, before the screen, were undoubtedly sat upon by the woman that everyone behind is grieving, they provide a very concrete catch for that grief. And leaving, the photographs assume greater resonance, become, indeed, quite haunting. The pile of soap and cacti, on the other hand, remains an ugly intrusion. The moulid is a stereotypical image of Egyptian society that encompasses all its coexisting contradictions without allowing any of its poles to affect the other negatively or positively.