Forever Is Now: Contemporary Art in the Shadow of the Pyramids

Eight artists, eight installations and one of the most extraordinary exhibition settings in the world.

Placing contemporary art beside the Pyramids of Giza is an ambitious idea. The landscape already carries more than 4,500 years of history, symbolism and visual power, leaving little room for anything new to compete for attention.

The sixth edition of Forever Is Now, presented by Art D’Égypte on the Giza Plateau, approaches this challenge with surprising sensitivity. Rather than simply using the Pyramids as a spectacular backdrop, the eight participating artists respond to ideas that have shaped this place for millennia: geometry, ritual, memory, movement, rebirth and our enduring desire to leave something behind.

Walking through the exhibition, the relationship between ancient and contemporary gradually becomes the most interesting part. Some installations blend almost naturally into the desert landscape, while others introduce colour, reflection or unexpected shapes. Each offers a different way of looking at a place we think we already know.

Possible Landscapes; Charlotte Colbert

Charlotte Colbert’s Possible Landscapes immediately changes the way the surrounding landscape is perceived.

A monumental stainless-steel arch rises from the desert, topped by a single eye. Its polished surface reflects the sand, sky, visitors and Pyramids, continuously changing depending on where you stand.

The work explores perception and the boundary between what is visible and what is imagined. The eye becomes a symbol of consciousness, while the mirrored surface draws the surrounding landscape directly into the sculpture.

Viewed through the arch, the Pyramids almost become part of the installation themselves. A structure created thousands of years ago is suddenly framed by something distinctly contemporary, creating an unexpected visual dialogue between past and present.

The Gathering; Abdul Rahman Taha

Saudi artist Abdul Rahman Taha finds inspiration in something much more familiar: the traditional game of tawla, or backgammon.

For The Gathering, the recognisable playing pieces are enlarged into monumental forms carved from natural stone and arranged across the landscape.

The concept feels particularly human in a setting usually associated with pharaohs, mythology and eternity. Backgammon is ultimately a social ritual: people gathering around a table, talking, competing and spending time together.

Taha transforms this everyday experience into something monumental, suggesting that cultural memory is preserved not only through architecture and historical monuments, but also through habits and rituals that continue from one generation to the next.

It Is Time to Plant Love; Jiang Qiong Er

Twelve golden figures form a procession through the desert in Jiang Qiong Er’s It Is Time to Plant Love.

Inspired by guardian figures found in ancient cultures across Egypt, China, India and Mesoamerica, the sculptures represent values including peace, wisdom, equality, freedom and courage.

The installation was created during the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Egypt and China, yet its message extends beyond the relationship between two countries. Instead, it focuses on ideas and values that different cultures have shared throughout history.

Their reflective surfaces add another layer. As visitors move between the figures, reflections of people, sand and pyramids appear across them, making the viewer briefly part of the work.

Passage; Raphaele Shirley

With Passage, Raphaele Shirley creates an installation designed to be experienced through movement.

Circular arches made from woven palm reed, copper and steel stretch across the desert, drawing on ideas of celestial movement, rebirth and cyclical time found in ancient Egyptian cosmology.

The work changes throughout the day. Sunlight moves across its surfaces, shadows become longer and the Pyramids appear from different angles between the arches.

That constant transformation creates an interesting contrast with the apparent permanence of Giza. The Pyramids were built to endure, while Passage is shaped by changing light, movement and the presence of the people walking through it.

Hortus Pictus; Geoffroy Pithon

Among the sand, stone and neutral tones of the plateau, Geoffroy Pithon’s Hortus Pictus immediately stands out through colour.

The French artist has created large painted architectural structures inspired by the Tree of Life and the idea of a mythological garden. Openings within the installation frame selected views of the surrounding desert and the Pyramids.

The effect is simple but surprisingly powerful. Instead of placing an image inside a frame, Pithon turns the landscape itself into the image.

Suddenly, familiar elements of Giza are reduced to shape, colour and composition. The installation encourages visitors to look at the landscape with the same attention they might give to a painting.

Celestial Vessels; Rochelle Nembhard

Rochelle Nembhard’s Celestial Vessels consists of eight monumental egg-shaped forms distributed across the plateau.

The work refers to the Ogdoad, eight primordial forces in ancient Egyptian creation mythology, and to the Cosmic Egg associated with the beginning of creation and first light.

Placed across the desert almost like a constellation, the rounded vessels create a striking contrast with the precise triangular geometry of the Pyramids.

There is something almost protective about their organic forms. They suggest beginnings and potential, while the monuments behind them represent something that has already survived thousands of years.

Together, they quietly raise a question that feels particularly relevant today: what do we create for the present, and what might remain after us?

The King’s Road; Seçkin Pirim

Turkish sculptor Seçkin Pirim looks to the historical routes and architecture of the Giza Plateau for The King’s Road.

Egyptian marble columns form a contemporary pathway that visitors can walk through, turning the sculpture into a physical experience rather than an object viewed from a distance.

The work also changes with the sun. Shadows move between the columns throughout the day, creating new patterns across the ground.

Architecture, sculpture and movement come together here in a very direct way. The material may be solid stone, but the experience of the work remains constantly in motion.

Talisman of Salvation; Emad Abu Grain

Egyptian artist Emad Abu Grain draws on ancient Egyptian spirituality and the Book of the Dead in Talisman of Salvation.

Natural stone and rope are used to explore ideas of eternity, consciousness and transition. Heavy stones appear suspended within woven structures, creating a tension between weight and fragility.

At first, some of the forms can resemble traps or nets. Viewed more closely, they begin to suggest a passage or transition from physical weight towards something lighter.

Against the Giza landscape, this contrast between earth and transcendence feels particularly fitting.

Seeing Giza differently

The most successful aspect of Forever Is Now is that the contemporary artworks never attempt to overpower their surroundings. Instead, they work with them.

They reflect the Pyramids, frame them, borrow from their materials and geometry, reinterpret ancient symbolism or introduce a deliberate contrast through colour and movement.

As a result, visitors begin to notice the landscape differently.

The Pyramids stop being only the iconic monuments we know from countless photographs. Their geometry becomes more visible. So does the texture of the stone, the movement of the shadows and their relationship with the vast open landscape around them. Contemporary art does not make Giza feel more modern,

it simply gives us another way of looking at something ancient.

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The DAPPO Take: Heritage is often discussed as something that needs to be preserved exactly as it is.

Forever Is Now offers a slightly different perspective. History can also remain relevant when contemporary artists are invited to respond to it, question it and interpret it through the language of their own time.

The Pyramids have stood on this plateau for roughly 4,500 years. These installations will remain for only a few weeks. For a short moment, however, they share the same landscape.

What that contrast is exactly what the title captures so well: Forever Is Now.