Our photojournalism masterclass program in collaboration with the Danish School of Media and Journalism, DMJX, culminated with the students exhibiting their work during Cairo Photo Week in April.
With my photos I hope to give voice to the unknown, and marginalized communities. I have always considered photography as a powerful tool to make people see, understand, and remember the things they don’t come across in their own lives
More than 200 documentaries, debates and meetings with film industry professionals – the four participants of the Egyptian Delegation to CPH:DOX got it all, if only online due to the pandemic. DEDI supported their accreditation to the Copenhagen based documentary festival, one of the biggest in the world. Also, 11 film students had access to watch the whole program thanks to DEDI supporting their accreditation.
High on DEDIs agenda 2021 was sustainability and our program kicked off in September at the Greenish Festival.
At Greenish Festival, we launched DEDI Green Checklist and held two workshops explaining the thoughts and ideas behind the easy-to-use checklist. You can download the checklist HERE, and get more sustainable in 2022!
A big role of the festival is to bring solutions to the table, discuss them and make them grow
And finally, in September, after one and a half year of postponing or cancelling visits, we had the great joy of hosting the first international workshop for DEDI Green Gate where 23 young Egyptian and Danish green entrepreneurs spent ten days in Cairo exploring urban agriculture and sustainable leisure.
“It has been so interesting to see all the projects and all the workshops, but what made the biggest impression was actually the other participants. It was so inspiring to be this many people gathered with the same ideas about the world and the same desires,” Tamar Bashary says.
Also high on DEDI’s Agenda 2021 was gender. In Women Take the Lead Network, we brought together 20 young women leaders from public and private sectors in Egypt and Denmark, to share their experiences.
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But it really stunned me how many similarities there were between us. I had expected that the differences in our background and life styles would show clearly
We are faced with many of the same dilemmas. As women we often have to legitimize what we choose to do and are automatically expected to act and live in a specific way
You can hear more from Mayar Darwish and Julie Lorentzen in their interviews by following the links.
Autumn was also the time for music. After a five days long residency, renowned musicians and composers, Maurice Louca and Lars Greve, performed their co-composed music at Alice during the Gong Tomorrow Festival in Copenhagen.
“I had no idea about the outcome. It was enough for me to know that both of us come from the worlds of improvisation and experimentation,” Maurice Louca says. (Photo: Photo: Andreas Johnsen // DEDI)
Shortly after, eight female DJs from Denmark and Egypt joined for DEDI DJ Masterclass in Cairo, taught by Tia Korpe and Zeina. The last evening, the whole group performed at local record store Yellow Tape.
From the pounding bass of the DJ Deck, the scene shifted to the suburb Maadi, where the artists residency of NU Rising brought together a group of young, experimental artists based in Denmark and Egypt.
After spending two weeks together, the artists held an interactive exhibition exploring myths at Bardo Clubhouse.
In November, the focus on arts continued as we journeyed to Aswan and back with eight Danish and Egyptian visual artists, as part of DEDI Art Symposium “After Confinement – At Tale of Two Cities”.
The Grand Finale of the year was the annual Danish-Egyptian furniture exhibition which took place at the newly inaugurated National Museum of Egyptian Civilization and was dubbed Bilingual Design.
It is really a humbling experience to work with such skilled artisans. They have done this work their whole lives, and are unbelievably good at it. Earlier today we almost started crying when we watched Mostafa work on the lathe. We wouldn’t been able to do this in Denmark
