Cosima Lukashevish
*1957
lives and works in Cairo (Egypt)
cosima_lukas@hotmail.com

Tyler School of Art
- Temple University, Bachelor of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA (USA)
- New York Academy of Design, New York, NY (USA)

2002 Alexandria (EG), “Imagining the Book”
2003 Wexford (IRL), Wexford Art Center
2003 Vilnius (LT), 3rd International Artist’s Book Triennial
2004 Alexandria (EG) “Handprinted Artist’s Book Biennale”

Object:

“Book”
wood/paper
mixed media collage
30 x 40 x 20 cm
2004

Fotos (3)

"The Labyrinth"
a book by Cosima Lukashevich.
mixed media, paper, 70 x50 cm, 2004

Statement

Erich (1) ----- I have a question for you.

I want to know if Kestutis (2) in Lithuania told you what I said to him when he told me he would not include my book in the traveling exhibt of the triennale ---- because he thought my book was too large and therefore too expensive to transport. He told me he wanted to ship it back to me and the other books would travel on to Germany and France.

I have to ask you this since I made such a stink with him about it.....he later told me he was including the very large book of mine (by his own car) to the next part of the traveling exhibit.....I laugh now at how outraged I was----poor Kestutuis – I let him have it.

I am asking you this question becasue I remember being soo outraged that my "voice" would not be heard in europe. that I was one of the few women in his international exhibit from the arab world and that my viewpiont would be over- looked ......(not as an new story for women). that I was a western Christian fighting for my civil rights as a woman in the judicial system of Egypt and because of this i had a particular point of view from this part of the world that seldom is heard. I told him that I saw this exhbit as a way of telling an audience a particular story that they would otherwise never hear....that I had taken the premise of the exhibit seriously as a way of comunicating with an audience through visiual story telling.

Erich ---I seem to have discovered how important a book could be to an artist though this insident- when I felt my freedom would be deminshed by my "voice" being excluded.

Is this what you are looking for when you ask for my point of view as a book artist in the arab world? is this of any sense or use to you?
I really love the possibilities of speaking in book language as a visual expressionist.....

cosima

(1) Erich Paproth, artist and curator of „arabbookart.de“ , Frankfurt (D)
(2) Kestutis Vasiliunas, curator of the „3rd International Artist’s Book Triennial” in Vilnius (LT)