Class Of 2025

Technologies and Replicas as Archives of Histories: When Egypt’s Pasts Meet Its Present

How did you come to this work?

My research explores decolonizing imaginations that extend beyond discourses of repatriation and the return of original artifacts. I focus on the Egyptian artifact replica production’s role in preserving and remaking histories. I aim to understand how manual and automated technologies reproduce historical knowledge. I focus on manual reproduction, 3D printing, scanning, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to explore how craftworkers’ replication process remakes relationships and narratives about Egyptian histories.

What resonated with you as you conducted your research?

I worked in urban and labor activism in the afterlife of the January 2011 Egyptian revolution. As a result of that experience, I saw replica production as a response to the closure of public spaces. The production processes of Egyptian replicated artifacts are acts of reclaiming historical artifacts that the global North is looting. I did my preliminary dissertation work in the summers of 2022 and 2023. This involved working with traditional craftworkers and artists who make heritage-inspired replicas that reproduce and reinterpret Egyptian histories.

Do you plan on continuing this work? If so, in what way?

I’ll continue my project in my 18-month dissertation fieldwork in 2024-2025, and continue working with craftworkers and artists I engaged with during my preliminary research.  I will build on my preliminary summer research to investigate how technological processes influence historical narratives, worker-machine interactions, and the reproduction of scientific-historical knowledge.