A few weeks ago, we met Yasmine El Meleegy, an Egyptian artist who can turn a single porcelain cup into a five-year journey through her country’s history. Her work sits somewhere between personal stories and national heritage, with each project built on an extraordinary amount of research, a deep dive into the archives and, above all, a great deal of heart.

One project, though, has stayed with me ever since. Perhaps because it was never confined to a gallery or an exhibition hall. Perhaps because, six years after it began, it still exists, quietly becoming part of everyday life in Cairo. Or perhaps it is all of the above. I honestly don't know. What I do know is that the story behind it deserves a little more of our attention.

And I have just one small request for you: next time you are in Cairo, promise me you will stop by the century-old Stephenson Pharmacy in Downtown Cairo.

In the heart of downtown Cairo, amid busy streets and the city’s constant motion, stands a pharmacy whose story began back in 1889.

It was founded by a Briton, George Stephenson, during the British occupation of Egypt. Over the next hundred-odd years, it lived through nationalisation under Gamal Abdel Nasser, a change of owners and several very different eras of Egyptian history. Today it is run by the son of Ihsan Samman, who once bought the place.

With its carved wooden cabinets and medical instruments shipped over from England in the nineteenth century, the pharmacy feels more like a museum than a chemist’s. Its objects carry traces of Egypt’s colonial past, still visible in the city’s everyday landscape. Yet it remained a working pharmacy, a familiar place where people came to buy their medicines.

Then artist Yasmine El Meleegy arrived with an idea that would add another chapter to its history. And rather than tell her story for her, I will let Yasmine take it from here.

One thing before we dive into the story: I have always been fascinated by craftsmanship and the process of making things. But I amn't necessarily interested in mastering every technique myself. I prefer to work with people who already have that knowledge and experience, which is why collaboration has become such an important part of what I do.

And Cairo is an incredible place for that. The city has such a rich history of craftsmanship, and there are so many skilled people working with different materials and traditional techniques. Most of my projects involve working with them in one way or another.

The Stephenson Pharmacy project is probably one of the best examples. Almost everything we created for it was made in collaboration with local craftspeople. But the story actually began somewhere quite far from Cairo.

In 2018, I was in Basel, Switzerland, researching the history of pharmaceutical objects at the Pharmacy Museum. I have long been interested in how everyday objects become museum artefacts, and how their meaning changes over time.

When I returned to Cairo, I started thinking about how I could continue that research in a different setting. I grew up in Downtown Cairo, so the neighbourhood has always been very close to me. And there, right in the middle of it, was Stephenson Pharmacy, one of the oldest pharmacies in Egypt.

I started wondering what would happen if I treated the pharmacy as an artistic space for a couple of months. Not to turn it into a gallery, but to work with what was already there: its architecture, its objects, its history and the people who had been part of it for generations.

The project also aligned perfectly with something I was particularly interested in at the time: repair and restoration. What does it actually mean to restore something? At what point are you preserving its history, and when are you creating something new?

Of course, having an idea was one thing. Convincing everyone to let me bring it to life was quite another.

Well, it wasn't easy. The project took shape during the COVID pandemic, when almost everything was closed. I was pregnant at the time, but I had a lot of energy and was determined to make it happen. I kept applying for grants and eventually received funding from Culture Resource, which allowed us to begin the restoration.

But there was one problem: how do you restore a space and turn it into art when the person running it isn't convinced? I started visiting the pharmacy almost every morning, trying to persuade the pharmacist to let us go ahead.

Once the project finally began to take shape, the next step was finding the right people to bring it to life. Luckily, Downtown Cairo was full of extraordinary craftspeople, many from the local Armenian community, who had preserved traditional restoration techniques for generations.

Together, we began bringing the pharmacy back to life, one detail at a time:

We also worked with a craftsman whose family ran one of the neighbourhood's oldest clock restoration workshops.

What made the experience so special was the collaboration. Almost everyone involved came from the surrounding neighbourhood, and over time, the project became something we all shared. I never felt the need to claim it as entirely mine.

The pharmacy is still there, and so are the objects. People carry on using them, often with no idea who made them. For me, being an artist isn't always about leaving my name on something. Sometimes, I simply knock on the door, become part of a place for a while, and then disappear.

What happens afterwards is anyone's guess. But perhaps that is what makes it so special: the work continues to have a life of its own, long after I have walked away.