Gypsum Bursaries is a stipend and mentorship program offered to visual artists to support their research towards the realization of a publication. Gypsum Bursaries aims to generate new ways of thinking about art practice through working intimately with a larger community of artists, writers, and thinkers.

The initiative is open to citizens or residents of Egypt with creative and original publishing proposals in English, Arabic, or both, across various formats including: Monographs, artist’s books, theme or medium-based publications, and whimsical and experimental forms. Successful projects will be chosen by a selection committee.

AMOUNT 3 bursaries of USD 1500

DURATION 6 months

MENTORSHIP

Each recipient will receive mentoring support from the Gypsum Bursary team and a selection committee member to facilitate and foster the incubation and development of the proposed project. The bursary will also facilitate a series of meetings and excursions, led by guest contributors, that will allow participants to engage with one another’s projects and expand their knowledge of alternative publishing practices in Egypt and the region.

COMMITTEE

Maha Maamoun

Mahmoud Khaled

Yasmine El Rashidi

TIMELINE

November: Circulation of open call

December 15: Deadline for submissions

Mid January: Announcement of results and disbursement of funds

Late May: Presentation of reports by participants

ELIGIBILITY

Project applications are accepted irrespective of age, years of experience, ethnicity, gender or religion.

TERMS & CONDITIONS The bursaries program seeks to support the development of publishing projects at various stages of completion. Recipients of the bursaries may choose to use the funds as a personal stipend, to cover research, design, or production costs, or for any other expense related to the project. At the end of the term, the recipient is invited to present a brief report in a format of their choosing on their research, in an informal and generative setting. All copyright for the publication remains with the recipient of the fund. Any future publications produced through the support of the stipend should credit the bursary.

ABOUT THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Maha Maamoun is an artist and curator working primarily with text, photography and video, and co-founder of the independent publishing platform Kayfa-ta. She is cocommissioning editor of How to maneuver: Shapeshifting texts and other publishing tactics (2020), a Kayf-ta publication aggregating knowledge around regional artistic and publishing practices, and curated an exhibition of the same name in Abu Dhabi, as well as two editions of How to reappear: Through the quivering leaves of independent publishing in Beirut (2019) and Amman (2020). She is one of the founding members of the Contemporary Image Collective (CIC), established in Cairo in 2004. She lives and works in Cairo.

Mahmoud Khaled’s multidisciplinary artistic practice encompasses installation, video, photography, and publishing. His artist books include Fantasies on a Found Phone, Dedicated to the Man Who Lost it (2022), and MKMAEL Stories - An Image Passionate (2007). Discursive publications surrounding his practice include A Book on a Proposed House Museum for an Unknown Crying Man (2022) and A New Commission for an Old State (2017), among others. Khaled holds an MFA from Trondheim University in Norway (2017) and was a recipient of the DAAD fellowship for 2020. He lives and works between Cairo and Berlin.

Yasmine El Rashidi is an Egyptian writer. She is the author of Chronicle of a Last Summer, A Novel of Egypt, and The Battle for Egypt, Dispatches from the Revolution. She writes on politics and culture for The New York Review of Books, and is a contributing editor of the Middle East arts journal Bidoun. Her essays have appeared in publications including Artforum, Frieze, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Times. She has worked on books for artists including Michael Joo and Julie Mehretu, and contributed essays to publications for The New Museum NYC, SFMOMA, Sharjah Art Foundation, among others. She was a fellow of The Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris, The Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars in New York, the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, and is an Academy Member for the Deutsche Borse Foundation Photography Prize. She lives in Cairo.