Anthropology graduate student Alaa Saad was recently awarded a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant by the Wenner-Gren Foundation in support of her project “Prompting the Past, Crafting the Present: Replication Technologies and the Renarration of Egyptian Histories”

“This research project examines how Egyptian cultural producers, artists, and artisans employ replication technologies to prompt popular historical imaginaries that reclaim and rework state-sanctioned nationalist narratives. Egypt is a nation that leverages images and objects from antiquity in fashioning national identity due to its deep rootedness in an ancient civilization. The dissertation focuses on technologies replicating heritage-inspired designs through traditional woodworking, 3-D scanning/printing, and artificial intelligence (AI), where replication becomes a tool for engaging with subversive politics. The dissertation explores how heritage-inspired replication techniques challenge the state’s monopoly on public history through creative means. These production processes shed light on alternative forms of political engagement beyond traditional activism. I examine my research question by focusing on: Innovation and Preservation in Cultural Heritage Technologies, Creativity Within Replication, and Embodied Knowledge. Using multi-sited and multi-modal ethnography, the research begins in a Cairo-based factory employing manual artisans replicating ancient Egyptian, Islamic, and Coptic artifacts, then moves to technology-based independent artists’ exhibitions and studios.”