A Journey through the Duat

Interactive Kinetic Installation, 2024

“A Journey through the Duat” is an interactive/kinetic walk-in installation project inspired by the movie “The Mummy” by Shady Abdel Salam as part of my participation at the exhibition -Visual Narratives- which is an initiative bridges cinema and visual arts by ART 74.

This installation creates a dialogue between past and present in the art of storytelling; the relationship between the Egyptians and their Ancient Civilization and it’s mythology, the connection between life and death and the relationship between the cultural inheritance and the idea of the day of doom and the reward and punishment. All of those keywords were the motive to create this project.

Talking about the afterlife and the scene from the Book of the Dead describing the trail of an individual in the Hall of Justice by the god Osiris where the deceased will make his declaration of innocence. This confession of negation was a list of forty-two sins for which an individual frankly deny never committed as the deceased’s heart is weighed in a balance against the feather of Maat (feather of truth). And if the heart is lighter than Maat’s feather than his soul is crossed to bliss and if it’s heavier, the heart is thrown to ground where the divine beast will devour it.

 And by taking the symbol of the lotus flower in the ancient Egyptian Civilization as the cycle of life and death and also as the symbol of creation, rebirth and the afterlife.

Creating a pass with a forty-two repetitive sculpted lotus between open and closed ones referring to the number of rulers/judges in the Hall of Justice as well as the number of the forty-two rules of Maat used by the deceased for his declaration of innocence.

And by the end of this pass the scale of justice and by pressing at it’s bottom the scale start moving up and down as a metaphor of the responsibility of our lives and which side of the scale we want it to win; the good or the evil side.

And having a sound design created specifically to this project with a voice over with the declaration of innocence with a sound track of the clock sound with the sound of metal friction of the scale as metaphor of the our time passing in this life. 

This project is inviting the viewers to reflect on how different mediums whether static or dynamic serve the same purpose; to tell stories and connect us across time.