Eight artists from different countries have presented monumental installations beside the Great Pyramids, exploring the connection between ancient heritage and contemporary art, time and the human imagination.
The Great Pyramids of Giza, which have stood for more than four thousand years, have become a space for an encounter between ancient heritage and contemporary artistic thinking. The sixth Forever Is Now 06 exhibition has opened here — an international open-air project organised by the cultural platform Art D’Égypte. Eight artists from different countries have presented large-scale installations created in direct dialogue with the historical landscape of the plateau.
The exhibition runs from 8 to 28 November 2026 and addresses questions that link ancient civilisation with the present day: how people perceive time and space, what makes architecture eternal, and how cultural memory continues to shape our idea of the future.
This year the exhibition’s artistic vision has been shaped predominantly by women. Among the participants are artists from Egypt, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, China and other countries. Their works share an interest in ancient symbols and knowledge, but each artist finds her own way of engaging with the historical site — through mythology, architecture, sculpture, natural materials and the viewer’s personal experience.
Architecture as a Portal Between Worlds
One of the central images of the exhibition is Possible Landscapes by the British-French artist Charlotte Colbert. The composition combines mirrored surfaces, sculptural elements and a monumental stainless-steel arch crowned with the image of an eye. This motif occupies a special place in the artist’s work and is linked to the idea of the collective imagination and the human capacity to revise the familiar view of the world.
On the Giza Plateau the image takes on an additional meaning. The eye refers to ancient Egyptian symbolism, while the reflective surfaces connect the installation with the surrounding space: the desert, the sky and the silhouettes of the pyramids interact within them. Colbert invites us to see the ancient structures not only as monuments of the past but also as a kind of gateway to other worlds and eras.
Here an echo arises between two ways of perceiving reality. For the ancient Egyptians, the pyramids were part of their understanding of the order of the world, of eternity and of the human path beyond earthly life. In Colbert’s interpretation, they become a starting point for a conversation about imagination, faith and the limits of the visible.
The idea of passage continues in the installation Passage by the French-American artist Raphaëlle Shirley. A sequence of arches forms a walkway directed towards the pyramids. The structure combines metal, copper, wood, palm fibres and hand-woven Egyptian cotton.
The ornaments and curves refer to Nut — the ancient Egyptian goddess of the sky, depicted as a female figure encompassing the celestial vault. The work also embodies the idea of the cyclical nature of life, death and rebirth.
Visitors can walk through the installation, observing how perspective, lighting and shadows change. As a result, the work exists not only as an architectural form but also as a space of personal experience in which the viewer becomes part of the artistic design.
From Cosmology to the Universal Language of Love
The connection between ancient ideas about the origin of the world and contemporary art is revealed in the work Celestial Vessels by the British-Jamaican artist Rochelle Webster-Nembhard.
Eight monumental forms made of Egyptian limestone resemble eggs and refer to the Ogdoad — the eight primordial deities of ancient Egyptian cosmogony, associated with the idea of the Universe emerging from the primordial waters. The artist juxtaposes the rounded plasticity of the sculptures with the geometry of the pyramids. Whereas the latter embody architectural stability and order, the rounded forms express the ideas of the origin of life and creation. Egyptian stone was used for the work, and its creation took place in collaboration with the local company Marmonil.
Another story of cultural interaction is presented by the Chinese artist and designer Jiang Qiong Er in the installation It Is Time to Plant Love.
Twelve golden guardian figures are arranged in a solemn composition reminiscent of a ceremonial procession. The work combines motifs from different cultures and universal human values — love, mutual understanding and unity. The project is also timed to mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Egypt and China.
The artist turns to the idea of a common language capable of uniting people regardless of their origin. In a space where ancient civilisations have left their own symbols and conceptions of the world, this theme acquires particular expressiveness.
A Landscape That Becomes a Work of Art
The French artist Geoffroy Pithon, in the work Hortus Pictus (“Painted Garden”), invites us to see the desert landscape through the prism of colour and architecture.
His composition consists of bright structures with openings reminiscent of windows and doors. Amid the sands they create an unusual space in which the painted surfaces become an extension of the surrounding landscape. The openings frame views of the pyramids, turning them into a kind of painting within the architectural composition.
The contrast between the saturated colours and the restrained palette of the desert becomes one of Pithon's principal artistic devices. The viewer is invited not merely to observe the work from the outside, but to walk through it and discover new perspectives for themselves.
A completely different approach to architectural memory is demonstrated by the Turkish artist Seçkin Pirim in the work The King's Road.
The installation is a sequence of columns made of Egyptian marble that form a path towards the pyramids. Its composition refers to the historical roads of the plateau that connected the quarries and the temple spaces.
Repetition, geometric rhythm and the interaction of light with the surfaces of the stone play an important role here. As the sun moves, the columns cast changing shadows, so that the work constantly changes its visual appearance. The artist turns to architecture as a way of organising space and at the same time as a kind of measure of time: the stone preserves traces of the past, while the light creates a new composition every day.
Memory, Communication and the Path to Eternity
The theme of human connections is explored by the Saudi artist Abdulrahman Taha in the work The Gathering.
Its source of inspiration was the traditional board game tawla — a variety of backgammon popular in the Middle East. The artist transfers familiar game elements to a monumental scale: large forms made of natural stone resemble game pieces arranged in groups.
The familiar game becomes a reflection on meetings, communication and the social rituals that are preserved across generations. Cultural memory is made up not only of great structures and historical events, but also of the everyday forms of human interaction.
The Egyptian artist Emad Abu Grein presents the installation Talisman of Salvation, inspired by the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.
The composition combines stone blocks and interlacing ropes. The artist turns to ideas of the human spiritual path, protection and the striving for eternity. The massiveness of the stone and the interweaving of lines create an image of passage in which the material and the symbolic are closely bound together.
Ancient ideas about the afterlife receive a contemporary plastic expression, and the work itself becomes a reflection on human consciousness, memory and spiritual search.
When the Past Becomes Part of the Present
Forever Is Now 06 shows how varied the ways in which contemporary art can interact with ancient heritage can be. For some artists the pyramids become a starting point for reflections on the origin of the Universe, for others — a symbol of architectural order, cultural memory or the human striving for eternity.
The distinctive feature of the exhibition is that the historical space here does not serve as a neutral backdrop for contemporary works. It participates directly in the creation of their meaning. The pyramids are reflected in mirrored surfaces, appear framed by arches and architectural openings, and enter into a visual dialogue with stone, metal, colour and natural materials.
At the same time, the artists do not attempt to compete with the scale of the ancient structures or to repeat their forms. On the contrary, each offers their own way of seeing what has existed for millennia but continues to reveal itself to new generations.
This year the exhibition takes on additional significance: it coincides with the tenth anniversary of Art D'Égypte — a platform founded by the curator Nadine Abdel Ghaffar in 2016. Its activities are aimed at developing contemporary Egyptian art and strengthening international cultural exchange.
Forever Is Now 06 runs on the Giza Plateau until 28 November 2026. The project reminds us that the present is not separated from the past: it constantly reinterprets it, creating new images, meanings and possibilities for the future.
