La Chapelle, Rue de Varenne, Paris.

Pop-up exhibition in a former 17th-century chapel.
Curator: Aline Pujo.

Electronic music record
Mophradat, Brussels

Film

Mostakell Label, Cairo
Collaboration with Adham Zidan.

Film screening, installation, performance
Espace Commines, Paris

Curators: Aline Pujo and Damien MacDonald

Vidéo : Private screening of the short film SWIM

Cimathèque, Cairo
Curator: Tamer El Said

After his studio was raided by the Egyptian political police in January 2014, Aalam refrained from showing his work locally, abroad, or online. During this period, he produced 76 short films and over 1,000 photographs (portraits and clandestine street photography). He also wrote a dystopian novella (Eden, A Beautiful Future, For Free, For Ever). He eventually began sharing elements of this work again, anonymously or through ephemeral online publications.

Video installation

The Neuberger Museum of Art, New York
Curator: Jacqueline Shilkoff

Video
École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs, Paris

Curator: Jean-Louis Boissier

Video

Video

Videos - Installations.

Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt

Curator: Britta Peters

Video installation

Matilha Cultural, São Paulo

Curator: Demétrio Portugal

Video - Debate

Stora Teatern, Gothenburg, Sweden

Curator: Charlotta Dohlvik

Video - Debate

European Council, Strasbourg

Curator: Kim Campbell

Video installation

Cracow Museum of Contemporary Art, Kraków

Curators: Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin

Videos - Performances

Collaboration with Sylvaine Hélary

Atelier du Plateau, Paris

Site-specific installations

Ateliers de Sèvres, Paris

Curator: La Générale en Manufacture

Video - Debate

In collaboration with Omar Robert Hamilton

De Balie, Center for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam

Curator: Eric Kluitenberg

Paintings, Videos & Polaroid installation

Galerie Conradi, Hamburg

Gallerist: Elena Winkel

Site-specific installations
Ateliers de Sèvres, Paris
Curator: La Générale en Manufacture

Videos, Mural, Installations

Espace 000-001, Cairo

Curator: Aalam

Site-specific installations

Danish-Egyptian Dialogue Initiative (DEDI)

Townhouse Gallery, Cairo

Curators: M. Irving Jensen & G. Krogager Lund

Video

La Comète, Paris

Curator: Tiqqun

Performance, Videos

Collaboration with Antonin Rayon and Sylvaine Hélary

L’Échangeur, Paris

Sound installation

Collaboration with Nermine Hammam

Townhouse Gallery, Cairo

Impromptu performance

Townhouse Gallery, Cairo

Videos

OK Museum for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria

Curator: Ars Electronica

Performance

In collaboration with Rada Boukova, feat. Yroyto
Art on the Edge, 01SJ Festival for Digital Arts, San José, California

Curator: Andy Cunningham

Three years in Sayyeda Zeinab, a working-class district of Cairo. Aalam lived there and produced works exhibited directly in the surrounding environment — abandoned spaces, street-level artisan workshops, and his ground-floor studio, which was always open to the public. He curated three major exhibitions featuring videos, installations, murals and sound pieces.

Festival Vidéoformes, Montpellier

Video

I Am Not a Cellist, in Le Temps d’Une Marée
Biennale of Contemporary Art, Dieppe

Curator: Alice Mallet

Public and radio performance

Travaux Publics – France Culture
Association Zy’va, Nanterre

Curator: Jean Lebrun

The following text was written by the OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria: “Ahmad Sherif is a fictional online persona. In just one year, he created a media architecture drawing its momentum from the most widespread Web services. Based on this, his work migrates fluidly between worlds: the Internet, mass media and the street. By breaking political and social taboos, Ahmad Sherif experiments with new media and networks without regard for formats, genres or styles, constantly adapting his interventions to their environment. His signature has appeared in connection with silent videos, music, animated films, pop songs, news articles, online happenings, mobile-phone videos distributed in the street, open letters, debates, interviews, commentaries, emails, tags, and more. His works have often been perceived as unexpected ‘disruptions’ within a vicious circle of fear, intimidation and repression, opening unprecedented spaces for free expression. One particularly striking aspect of the Ahmad Sherif Project is its use of search-engine advertising as a communication medium, using Google Ads to disseminate political messages in the context of censorship in Egypt.”

Interactive light boxes

Lafayette Anticipations, Paris

Curators: Pierre Saulay and Philippe Lemoine

Photographs

Galerie Marie Watteau, Paris

Curator: Marie Watteau

Founding member of OpAntiSh (Operation Anti Sexual Harassment),

a collective of more than 200 volunteers fighting sexual harassment and mob assaults against women during Egypt’s revolutionary years.

Member of the Mosireen Film Collective, Cairo.

Member of La Générale en Manufacture, Paris.

The Ahmad Sherif Project
Linz, Austria
2008

AFAC

(Arab Fund for Arts and Culture)

Beirut

2021

Reviews, interviews, articles in: France Culture (10+), The Economist, Al Dostour, Télérama, BBC World, La Vanguardia, Magaz, Ask, EFE, Huffington Post, The Guardian (3), New York Times (5), Der Spiegel, NPR (3), The Independent, Libération (10+), CNN (2), RFI (3), L’Express (2), La Presse, Jazz Magazine, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera (2), Al Ahram Hebdo, Mediapart (2), Le Temps, France 24 (2), Le Monde Diplomatique, Europe 1, France Inter (3), Arte TV, The New Yorker (2), Le Figaro, Washington Post, ABC News, Associated Press (2).

Ayler Records, Paris, 2015 — Record

Edited by Peter Weibel,

ZKM & MIT Press, 2015 — Anthology, Massachusetts, USA.

Edited by L. Engelmann, R. Forst, K. Günther, H. Kube Ventura & P. Siller,

Verlag für Moderne Kunst, 2012, Frankfurt — Exhibition catalogue.

Brenda Moore-McCann,

Circa, 2012, Belfast, Ireland — Exhibition review.

Edited by David Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin,

Foundation for Visual Arts, 2011, London — Exhibition catalogue.

Edited by M. Irving Jensen & G. Krogager Lund, DEDI, 2010, Cairo — Exhibition catalogue.