Mena El Shazly

Mena El Shazly (b. Giza, Egypt) is a visual artist based between Cairo and Vancouver. Her practice speculates on concepts of presence and transcendence, how these are informed by internet culture and ancient rituals, and explores practices of cultivating decay and alternative forms of transformation and regeneration. She obtained a Master of Fine Arts from the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver (2023) and a Bachelor of Arts from the American University in Cairo (2013). She was a fellow of the Diriyah Art Futures Emerging New Media Artists program in Riyadh (2026), and the Home Workspace Program at Ashkal Alwan in Beirut (2015). El Shazly is the recipient of Dazibao’s Jeune tête d’affiche prize (2023-24) and a finalist at Polygon Gallery's Lind Prize for her most recent project, Hyperopia. Other awards include the Social Science and Humanities Research Council Graduate Scholarship (2022) and Goethe-Institut’s International Coproduction Fund (2019). 

Most recently, she presented solo exhibitions at Wekalet Behna (Alexandria, 2026) and Medrar for Contemporary Art (Cairo, 2026). Her work has been shown in venues including Diriyah Art Futures, Riyadh (2026); The Cinematheque, Vancouver (2025); IDFA, Amsterdam (2025); The Polygon Gallery, Vancouver (2024); Grand Egyptian Museum, Cairo (2024); VIVO Media Arts, Vancouver (2022); Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo (2019); Palace of Arts—Cairo Opera House Complex, Cairo (2018); Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (2015); and House of World Cultures, Berlin (2015). 

She is part of Seeds of Doubt, a collective of artists, researchers, and filmmakers—Dana Salama, Mena El Shazly, Omnia Sabry, and Rana El Mahallawy—who critically engage with Egyptian landscapes and botanical histories through dialogues on the political stakes of archives, expertise, and methodology.

El Shazly also has a well-established curatorial practice. She is the Artistic Director of the Cairo Video Festival organized by Medrar, and a curator at the Small File Video Festival.