Arij
Scent of Revolution

Arij | Scent of Revolution by Viola Shafik
EGY/DEU 2014, Forum
© Talal Khoury & Viola Shafik

Arij | Scent of Revolution by Viola Shafik
EGY/DEU 2014, Forum
© Talal Khoury & Viola Shafik
The other two live in Cairo – but the writer is a man living in a different time, and the designer a woman living in another world. Back in the 1980s, he wrote about his disenchantment with the 1952 revolution, comparing past and present. She has developed a space of virtual possibility in Second Life, where she invites a Salafist to meet her as an avatar at Tahrir Square.
The scent of revolution is bewitching and can found all over the place, it is intangible and ephemeral. A fresh scent can remind you of something from the past.
A revolution is usually associated with a place and a year, yet it is precisely this sort of restriction that usually brings about it its failure. Arij generates space and time in all directions, thus giving the revolution room to breathe.