On February 20th MOCA presents the U.S. première of Wael Shawky’s film installation “Drama 1882”.
Debuted at the Egyptian Pavilion of the 2024 Venice Biennale, this work makes the form of an eight-part opera, performed for the camera and filmed in a theater in Alexandria. “Drama 1882” takes the Urabi revolution in Egypt against British imperialism (1879-1882) as its foundation, specifically a cafe brawl between a donkey owner and a Maltese man that unleashed events that precipitated over seventy years of British colonial rule in Egypt.