About Wekalet Behna
Wekalet Behna is an arts institution in Alexandria, a space focused on cinema, visual arts, writing, alternative arts education, and research as means of connection. Through film screenings, discussions, exhibitions, intensive educational and collaborative programs, research projects, and publications, and through engaging with artistic developments and pushing continually to revisit prevailing cultural structures and dismantle stereotypes, Wekalet Behna engages with the community.
Behna brings artistic practice, learning, and research together.
Behna develops study programs, public events, and artistic and research residencies, while organizing the Behna family archive and making it available for research.
How we work
We Learn together
Wekalet Behna believes in the importance of alternative education and critical thinking as foundations for engaging with artistic developments. The agency offers film screenings, art exhibitions, discussions, seminars, and study programs, driven by a belief in the value of learning in itself, and in an effort to contribute to the cultural and artistic landscape of Alexandria and its local and regional surroundings, by activating cultural and artistic programs that sharpen knowledge and skills among those interested in the arts and culture sector.
An Open Space
Wekalet Behna seeks to contribute to the cultural and artistic landscape of Alexandria and its local and regional surroundings by activating a cultural and artistic program offered free of charge to the public, one that engages with concepts of contemporary art production and provides the opportunity to host and present as much local and international artistic production as possible, work that helps build critical and analytical thinking, and that reconsiders what is fixed and rigid in the process of artistic production and reception, including cultural concepts such as the archive and the museum, and their relationship with the public.
From Alexandria Onward
We aspire to revisit prevailing cultural practices, fixed ideas, and popular modes of production, and we push continually to root an authentic critical thinking as an essential part of the creative and artistic production process. We also support research as a necessary foundation for any artistic practice or production, and we dream of providing written knowledge production in Arabic, or translated into it, that contributes to building a strong critical and artistic foundation for every artist and researcher living within our geographic surroundings from Alexandria as a starting point, to the furthest reaches of the Arabic-speaking world.
