"Feathered Truth" Waterless Lithograph 630mm x 480mm

Amira Wasfy (Artist)

Artist Statement:

Art plays a vital role in shaping human civilisation. The image is a visual documentation of the artist’s observation of the reality of her time and space. The artist contemplates an ancient civilization’s concept of justice and examines its place as an enduring conceptual value today. Studying an ancient scroll from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, she has come across an illustration depicting the journey of the soul after death where one goes through a test or judgment before making the transition to the afterlife.In the judgment halls the Goddess Maat represents truth, law, moral, justice, and balance. Maat’s role is to judge the soul of the dead, using the feather as a measure to weigh the worth of the soul believed to be living in the human heart, when the heart is equal to the Feathered Truth  then the soul will achive a safe passage to the afterlife.
The work challenges the viewers to contemplate historical and current concepts of truth, justice and morality.

Iman Mersal (Poet)

Poem by Iman Mersal
Why did she Come?

Why did she come to the New World, this mummy, the subject of spectacle
sleeping in her full ornament of gray gauze,
an imaginary life in a museum display case?
I think mummification is contrary to immortality
because a preserved corpse will never be a part of a rose.
The mummy did not choose migration, but those who waited in long lines
at consulates and built houses in other countries
still dream of returning when they become corpses.
-You have to take us there!
This is what they instruct in wills they hang around their children’s necks
as if death is an unfinished identity
that matures only in the family burial plot.

Isizulu Translation by Rosethal Lolie Makhubu
Kungani eza?

Kungani eza Emhlabeni Omusha, lesi sidumbu esonyisiwe, lesi esingumbukiso
olele emhlobisweni wakhe ogcwele owulwembu elimthubi,
“MsoNormal” impilo esemcabangweni phakathi kwekasi lokuhlobisa lasemnyuziyamu
ngicabanga ukuthi ukomiswa kwesidumbu kuphiksana nokungafi
ngoba isidumbu esilondoloziwe singeze nenze saba yingxenye yembali.
Isidumbu esonyisiwe asizikhethelanga ukuba sithuthe, kodwa laba abayebalinda emigqeni emide
emahhovisi amakhonsela baphinde bakha nezindlu kwamanye amazwe
basaphupha ngokubuyela uma sebeba yizidumbu.
Kumele usiyise lapho!
Lokhu kuba ngumyalo kumawili abawagaxa ezintanyeni zezingane zabo
okusengathi ukufa kungumazisi ongekaqedwa
okukhula kuphela esizeni sokungcwaba somndeni.

Amira Wasfy (Artist) and Iman Mersal (Poet) representing Egypt in the Art For Humanity “Dialogue Among Civilization” Print Portfolio 2010.