The Sound of Light and Hope

Bahia Shehab (EG)
The Sound of Light and Hope
Digital video, duration: 90 seconds, 7 digital photographs, song lyrics

In this short film Shehab depicts a group of Egypt’s blind female musicians, Al Nour Wal Amal ‘Light and Hope’ Chamber Orchestra, which was founded in the 1950s. The orchestra is playing a classical composition by an Egyptian composer. ‘Light and Hope’ are the only all women orchestra in the world that plays without a conductor. 

Bahia Shehab is a Lebanese-Egyptian artist, designer and Islamic art historian. Her book A Thousand Times NO was published in 2010. She is a TED Senior Fellow, and was selected as one of BBC’s 100 Women of the world in 2013. Bahia is a 2016 Prince Claus Laureate, and a 2017 UNESCO Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture recipient.