Video on the Road

By Kim S Beamish

#Cairo tentmakers. Finest applique. Revolution = no tourists. Please visit. Any trouble in town easily avoided. pic.twitter.com/Lym0GoMn

So how did I get here shooting a documentary film in a 400 year old covered market or souk in the heart of Old Islamic Cairo. A film about textile workers, men who hand stitch intricate applique pieces. How did I get to know what the phrase ‘hand turned applique’ means?

My last film ‘Just Punishment’ was kind of my ‘Heart of Darkness’ moment sending me into alcohol induced nervous breakdowns and manic tear filled reactions to the smallest of incidents. After we covered the trauma filled lives of our subjects and the horrific execution of our lead character I said to my soon to be wife, “I just want to make a film about butterflies.”

So now here I am almost surrounded by butterflies, or at least something as colourful and of which, at least when I began, I had very little knowledge of. My knowledge of butterflies is reasonably limited. This film has become so much more than I could have ever thought it would be.

Andreia Schineanu Velander: Please how can I buy one of these creations? I am in Australia

I have meet some of the most humble and outstanding men I think I have ever met. I have, and am, sitting with devout Muslims whose culture is quite a way away from that of my own. I have been accepted into a small community of people as though I had been born a member of their family. This is what I love about filmmaking about finding a story that you can totally immerse yourself in. The experience.

My knowledge of textiles, prior to my arrival in Cairo, was limited to the few reports I did for SKA Tv’s community television news slot about the TCFU, the Textiles Clothing and Footwear Union, and the crush I had on the then Victorian Secretary for the TCFU, Michele O’Neil. Or the cold winter nights standing outside of the NIKE store in Melbourne blockading shoppers desperate to get their hands on a pair of new shoes. I really had no idea that the world of textiles was so big that quilting alone brings in more money to the USA economy than both hunting and fishing put together.

On only my third day in Cairo I stood on the street known as the 26th July waiting for a woman I had met once before a week ago in a cafe at the Australian National University in Canberra. Jenny Bowker was taking me to meet the Tentmakers of Cairo. I had my doubts as to how interested I was going to be. However when speaking to her and her husband, a former Australian Ambassador to Egypt, earlier in Canberra both of them had that look in there eyes like this really meant something to them. So the least I could do was take a look.

Ekramy gives me another lesson in stitching. I think I could seriously say that if i took up stitching it would become my life’s work as it would take the rest of my life to complete what these guys do in a couple of months.

Since that day I have been filming almost four to five days out of every seven in a street that must be no more than 200 metres long with approximately 17 shops and maybe 30 people. My whole idea of what Cairo, even Egypt, is comes from this street and these people. I have sat through some of the biggest and bloodiest moments in recent Egyptian history in this street almost oblivious to anything happening. Other than all of the men are glued to their television sets watching the rioting or media reports live and yelling to one another their thoughts or about which channel has a better picture. I have sat through elections, football games, the Olympics and always step out of the street and feel like I have been in some Narnia’esque never world. Almost as though time had stood still, it takes me a moment to get my bearings each time.

These men are all like brothers to each other and as brothers know there is always fighting. One very good friend I have who is very much a part of the Khiamiah, yet is not a stitcher nor does he work for one of the shops,  and is always at pains to tell me, “I am not Khiamiah”. He said to me once that Mubarak’s secret service had nothing on the secrets and subterfuge that goes on in this tiny street. I am not convinced that it is that bad but it definitely has its moments of intrigue. I mean when one one man can burn down anothers shop on the basis of a long running feud something has to have sparked him off.

The biggest gripe, or issue, that fills the street is that of ownership. Ownership of designs. Of work. Of workers. Of creative property or potential. There is no such thing as copyright in this street. It may exist as a law but who is going to have the money or time to go ahead with bringing it to court. And so much of the work remains hidden away from prying eyes. There are people working on this though.

Ekramy, Hosam and Ahmed. Furnex 2012

So I have now spent nearly six months filming in Chareh El Khiamiah, I have travelled to Oxford in the United Kingdom with them and am about to head to Paris, France and to two of the largest quilting shows in the world in Lancaster and Paducah in the USA. Not something that had even remotely touched my bucket list of things I must achieve before I die, but now I am very excited.

I have started a Facebook page which has almost 500 people liking it and nearly 1000 people looking at it everyday. I put clips up of the stitchers on YouTube reasonably regularly and have a Twitter account which pumps out 140 character calls to action almost around the clock. And now I have this blog where I hope to vent, revel and inform about how the filmmaking process is going in what will be a great movie about the Tentmakers of Chareh El Khiamiah. So if you are keen stay tuned for more from the Khiamiah.

By Kim S Beamish

The Tentmakers of Chareh El-Khiamiah Introduction from Video on the Road on Vimeo.

I have been shooting now for the better part of four months and have about 40+ hours of footage of the tentmakers of Chareh El-Khiamiah. ‘Chareh’ is Arabic for street, ‘El-Khiamiah’, the tentmakers, together, the Tentmakers Street.

An ancient falling down street which is home to most of Egypt’s traditional tentmakers, is one of only a few covered markets, or souks remaining. Its dusty, dirty walls are brushed with the bright and beautiful colours of quilt like pieces which have been stitched by hand by the Khiamiah, the tentmakers.

Chareh El-Khiamiah, The Tentmakers Street

However there are very few of these tentmakers that actually make tents. There is the odd tent or two about, mainly small tents about a metre high and sold to foreigners as kids cubby houses. This street is predominantly selling work that would have adorned the inside of bedouin style tents. Applique work which is sewn straight onto canvas backings, the same canvas that the tents were and are made from.

The best examples of these tents can be seen in some of the museums of Europe where 16th and 17th century Ottoman tents can be seen adorned in amazingly detailed hand stitched work that when in the right light can become overwhelming. One of the stitchers told me that it is an art form stolen from the Mongols as they rampaged through the Sinai more than 900 years ago.

Over the four months I have been shooting I have got to know most if not all of the stitchers in the street but have become attached, for now, to a small group of stitchers. Hosam Farouk and his older brother Ekrahmy, Hanny who is married to Hosam’s sister and Tarek who works for the same shop as Hanny. I tell you this to show you that this street is literally stitched together as relationships are both competitive financial ones as they are blood relations and every pound that passes through this street also passes through one of these relationships in some way or another.

Tarek with work in progress

Stitching, applique, essentially quilts has never been my thing although to be honest it had never entered my world. It has now become something I spend my days absorbed in and the Khiamiah are a much bigger story than just the beautifully coloured applique and the laborious workmanship that goes into each piece. This street is going through change, as is all of Egypt, and having to adapt to new ways of making a pound. The old markets have, for now, disappeared and it will be awhile until they return. The new markets are found abroad and as the saying goes, “If the mountain won’t come to Muhammed, then Muhammed must go to the mountain.”

The old markets were where foreign visitors and tourists made up a large part of Egypts income in the years leading up to the 25 January Revolution. This market has now gone, well most of it anyway. It is now necessary for the Khiamiah to “go to the mountain” and so it is that a couple of stitchers have been given the opportunity to travel into the heart of the fabric, textiles, quilting and arts world. To events such as Art in Action and the Festival of Quilts in the United Kingdom. As well as festivals throughout Europe and have attended quilting shows put on by the American Quilters Society in the USA.

Hosam signing autographs AQS Quilt Show, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

From these overseas visits a relationship has been formed between AQS and the Khiamiah. So much so that in the past couple of months contracts have been negotiated between most of the shops and the AQS to supply a large number of works to be sold into the USA. In the USA quilting is a multi-million dollar industry bigger than guns, hunting and fishing so this has huge potential for an industry reduced to maybe 40 competent stitchers. But it has also put a cat amongst the pidgeons as the old ways of doing business may not mesh with the new and the new way is, as yet, unknown.

With little to no regulation of the industry, other than individuals that carry it out with brash bravado, muscle and guts, the Khiamiah keep things close to their chests. Even those with the relationships mentioned before don’t necessarily work well together. The copying of work and designs and mass production of pieces known to sell well is prolific. Should a certain design or piece sell well with tourists that piece is mass produced as it is considered that all tourists will want to buy it. However once a foreigner has seen the same piece in every store their interest wanes and the store is left with stock that won’t sell and the opportunity to sell fresh new work has disappeared.

One of the shops in the Khiamiah

Many of the shops in the Khiamiah’s best work is not on display kept hidden just inside the door, in cupboards or galleries away from the prying eyes of other stitchers and shop owners. Possible customers, already jaded by the Egyptian salesmen stereotype, are unwilling and unaware to ask to see what treasures exist and so walk past oblivious. This can also be detrimental to the creation of new work as the fear is that work will only end up in another store for a lower price so it is never created. I know of at least half a dozen designs hidden under a cushion that have never seen the light of day.

A contract with the AQS could see some of this change as each individual piece will be selected by representatives from the AQS, who will be looking for originality, quality and for stock they know the market in the USA will be interested in. Originality will be a great measure and will disqualify work that has purposely been mass produced on the basis that this is what sold last time. Quality of work should, in theory, increase as this, one would hope, will become the highest of measures in selecting work. Stitchers in need of work will be forced to produce better work or lose out. There will always be an eye on what sells in the USA however this should not stop the introduction of new and varied work as the market in the USA will always be looking for new fresh designs and colourings.

Sorting through work in the Khiamiah

It is this change, development, new beginning that I am hoping to capture in the making of the documentary film ‘The Tentmakers of Chareh El-Khiamiah’. I am excited to see the potential for change from a market where stitchers fight tooth and nail whilst smiling to one of competitive collaboration. It may not happen but that makes it even more interesting.

If you are interested in knowing more please visit www.facebook.com/CharehElKhiamiah and if you like it, ‘Like’ the page.