Malak Helmy

Malak Helmy (born Alexandria, Egypt, 1982) is based in Cairo, and her art focuses on video, text-based works, and collective initiatives. Much of Helmy’s video work visually references the new cultural and architectural constructs of her native Egypt, disputing their too-easy claim on reality and seeking a truer center for psychical meaning. The rhythm of her videos emulates that of desire, but the pathos of the work is of desire left waiting, as time—and its trappings of expectation, language, will—is suspended. With this deft poetry, Helmy’s video art succinctly and beautifully encapsulates the haunting liminality that defines this historical moment, in Egypt and everywhere.

Helmy's work has been included in the Ninth Gwangju Biennial (2012), Documenta 13's Cairo Seminar (2012), Art Dubai (2011), Southern Exposure (San Francisco, 2011), Krowswork Gallery (Oakland, 2011), Projectos Monclovo (DF, 2011), Bergen KunstCenter (2011), Objectif Exhibitions (Antwerp, 2010), Mediamatic (Amsterdam, 2010), amongst others. She received her MFA from the California College of the Arts in 2010.

Notes from the Carbon Coast (2010) by Malak Helmy