Artwork: Wael Shawky, film still featuring dancing lions, *Love Story*, video installation, 2024

Egyptian artist Wael Shawky’s recent exhibition at Daegu Art Museum in Korea brings together the hallmarks of his practice such as film, performance and sculptural installations to explore the intertwining of mythology and the telling of history (especially the impact of colonialism), of memory and imagination, and how these elements shape cultural, national and religious identities in specific regions.

The three video installations featured include a new work made for this exhibition, Love Story (2024), and two previously shown works: Al Araba Al Madfuna I (2012), and I Am Hymns of the New Temples (2023). Mythology and storytelling are the common threads across these videos spanning the regions of Korea, Egypt, and the ancient Italian city of Pompeii, respectively. Shawky describes the current exhibition as an exploration of “how the metaphysical world is connected to our lives,” incorporating his ongoing interest in examining how concepts such as love, supernatural beings, and faith in gods are woven into modern life.

The new video installation Love Story reinterprets Korea’s oral folktales and traditional fairy tales through the three stories, Silkworm Princess, Gold Ax, Silver Ax, and The Rabbit’s Trial. Utilising the Korean pansori storytelling tradition—a form of musical storytelling with a singer and drummer—interacting with traditional lion dancing, Shawky illustrates how the opposing worlds of the material and non-material coexist within a single narrative, and how love as an abstract concept is made manifest in this world.