When everything becomes permissible, permissible, permissible, I will turn off the lights as a war upon the world, and make love to sleep and time in the same bed. A woman like me, at night, devours herself, and in the morning, returns entirely whole.
Permissible, permissible— if I shatter the mirror with a laugh.
If I open the windows to the insects, and your face, leaving behind my shadow— may you swallow one another.
Or if I keep you inside my palm, hide you behind the guest china, maybe, if I sweeten your fragments, you’ll still fall short.
Permissible—your vision falls from the innocence wall like worn-out shoes, and the night sings a vulgar hymn, as it should.
I will show you my painted limbs and won’t ask you where we bury lust—in white cotton, or in a new glass. I’ll place on your grave a sacred symbol befitting tonight’s blasphemy. Everything’s permissible, where pleasure forgives sins for their loud voices and wakes in me like an animal from death.
Deferred to you— like a poem no longer fit for use. I will be just fine when I’m between two walls, where mercy and mercy—mercy.
I sleep in a bed stretched out like punishment, and beside you, I dream of an impossible crime. And when I permit you, when you permit me, when the night permits everything— we will yawn.
Hagar Youssef is an Egyptian poet and writer based in Cairo. She has published a poetry collection titled “A Damaged Memory” in Arabic and she is currently working on two collection stories: “Dreaming With Two Heads” and “One Day.” She graduated from the Faculty of Education – Department of Sciences. She has written for various platforms, including those focused on feminism and gender studies. Her work explores the essence of language, deeply influenced by philosophers Roland Barthes and Georges Bataille, in linking love, pain, and death to language, deconstructing these themes. She is also passionate about translating literature and poetry, reviewing books, and writing journalistic and critical articles.
Lemon Language Paperback – November 22, 2024 by Hager Yossef
The certainty about our origin is in the bones. 21st-century Surrealism seeks universality while understanding the mind. We aspire to explore inner space together. From caves, dream temples, and pyramids of antiquity to the temporal lobes in our brain, our movement is a collage that devotes serious effort to be sympathetically aware of connections between ourselves and the collective unconscious.
Mitchell Pluto
𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝟮𝟲 𝘁𝗼 𝗝𝘂𝗹𝘆 𝟮𝟬, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟮 Over the past forty years, in the Middle East and various places in the world, Surrealism was considered as a past artistic movement and confined to limited artistic icons. And yet, in the meantime, Surrealism was constantly evolving and developing its tools and philosophy to free human imagination, where the mental play of imagination through art and literature remains the most fundamental activity.
photo of Ghadah Kamal Ahmed by Mohamed al Kashef
In the continuation of the contemporary surrealist wave in Egypt and the Middle East, and after the International Exhibition of Surrealism held in Cairo from 15 to 19 February 2022 as the start of a round trip / Cairo – Saint Cirq Lapopie. Based on the wonderful energy achieved with its success, the idea of continuing the adventure in Alexandria was born from the collective work of surrealists from Egypt, France and all over the world.
Echoes of Contemporary Surrealism – Maze of Dreams and Games which includes displaying a wide range of artworks, music, surrealist films, visual arts, and practicing surrealist collective games during the exhibition with workshops on collective surrealist creative techniques and games created from 1924 until today. In conjunction with the Echoes of Contemporary Surrealism Exhibition in Alexandria, on June 15, the same events of the exhibition and workshops will be organized, as well as other events that will be hosted by art space and square simple garden In Budapest, the opening will coincide with the opening of the exhibition in Alexandria on June 8.
Mohsen L Belasy
“Drink wine and look at the moon and think of all the civilizations the moon has seen passing by.” ― Omar Khayyám
The essential for a Zen painter means a manner of being in the deepest sense and not, as for us, a manner of doing. For them it means fusion in the life of the cosmos…
Andre Masson
The 3 Echoes:Ghadah Kamal Ahed, Fairouz Eltaweela and Mohsen L Belasy
“I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality, if one may so speak.” ― André Breton, Manifestoes of Surrealism
“I was interested in other spaces to do with forms drawn from non-Euclidean geometry and the idea of entering these spaces. These structures do not rely on the sense of space, as we know it. It is a space without limits and which transforms itself in time – a mutant space.”
– Roberto Matta, in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, April 2001
“the principle which controls magic, and the technique of the animistic method of thought, is “Omnipotence of Thought.” ― Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
― Albert Einstein
A brief sample of visual artist participants of Echoes of Contemporary Surrealism Alexandria /Exhibition
Mohsen L BelasyOdy SabanShahd ElkhouliIrene PlazewskaJaime Alfaro NgwaziEnrique de SantiagoMagdalena BenaventeMitchell Pluto
Daniel O’Reilly Soundtrack Echoes of Contemporary Surrealism /Alexandria 2022
‘Masks of the City’ – La Sirena‘s contribution to the 15 minute smartphone film challenge for Echoes of Contemporary Surrealism Exhibition. Shown in Budapest and Alexandria. Darren Thomas, Doug Campbell Tara King, Elliott H. King, Janice Hathaway, Irene Plazewska, Patrick Hourihan, LaDonna Smith, Christine Haller, Clém Gslr, Daina Almario-Kopp
Echoes of Contemporary Surrealism Freudian Slip: Interpretation of Dreams and a Labyrinth of Surrealist Expression videographer by Maria Gyarmati music by / LaDonna Smith and Daniel O’Reilly editing by / Mohsen L Belasy Echoes of Contemporary Surrealism—Freudian Slip: Interpretation of Dreams & Labyrinth of Surrealism Budapest Surrealist Society Echos du surréalisme contemporains افتتاح معرض جماعى عن الاعمال السريالية وعروض افلام
Echoes of Contemporary SurrealismPosters by Ghadah Kamal Ahmed
Mitchell Pluto 