Egypt is a beautiful country, but we would be lying if we said its skyline is as beautiful as it should be. As a matter of fact, it’s a mess. And it’s sad, considering the beautiful architecture you can see if only you took a walk in Downtown Cairo.
To fix this, Jason Stoneking started his dish painting initiative. We loved it from the get-go, and we’ve even written about it before. We were so excited to hear from him again this week, telling us about his collaboration with Ismaelia for Real Estate Investment. Basically, Jason’s project is the first of many that will be hosted on Ismaelia building rooftops. The company decided to use its buildings in encouraging art, entrepreneurship and tourism all in one go.
The space on their rooftops will be used for artistic projects like Jason’s, rooftop gardens and basically anything else that could be hosted on a rooftop. There will also be spaces which will be given to entrepreneurs at a special rate for them to work at. As well as plans to put food courts between the buildings and hosting musical and stand up comedy events there.
Seeing how Jason’s idea matches what Ismaelia wanted to do, Moshira Adel, the Marketing Manager there, contacted him. And on November 13th, the event was held. We arrived as Jason was still preparing for the event by washing the dishes.
In an hour, Jason’s friends and volunteers showed up and were mixing paint.
And within minutes they were painting every dish on the rooftop. By the time we left, the entire place looked way more vibrant, cheerful and inspiring. With dishes painted solid orange, blue and purple. And others that were patterened with polka dots and other shapes. A creativity boosting idea has never been so simple yet brilliant!
This is only one of Jason’s projects here. His and his girlfriend’s (Leslie McAllister) residency show is coming up this November 18th in Artellewa. The residency show will exhibit their numerous projects in Egypt other than this one. The couple’s work is inspiring, and it’s wonderful to see it supported in Egypt. We can only hope to see more projects like this.