You Can Crush the Flowers

Bahia Shehab is a multidisciplinary artist, designer and art historian. Her work is concerned with identity and preserving cultural heritage. Through investigating Islamic art history she reinterprets contemporary Arab politics, feminist discourse and social issues. She is Professor of Design at The American University in Cairo.

• Introduction 6Rooms in an Imagined Museum (25 January to 11 February 2011) 10The Calligrapher’s Headline (12 February 2011) 18A State of Democratic Infancy (February to October 2011) 22A Thousand Times No (November to December 2011) 28First Anniversary (January to March 2012) 40The Candidates (March to June 2012) 60The New Pharaoh (July to December 2012) 72The Children of Asyut (January to June 2013) 82Rebel, Cat! (June 2013) 92Stealing the Dream (June 2013) 102A Conversation (July to October 2013) 108Ten Years On: May You See Days Better than Mine 114Bibliography 138Endnotes 141

"By her own account, Shehab, one of the Arab world’s most inventive graphic artists, was not a political rebel until the Egyptian uprising of 2011. . . The memoir is evocative and moving; the illustrations an important piece of the historical record."