New Orientalism and Cultural Representation: An Imagiological Analysis of the Grand Egyptian Museum Opening Ceremony and the “Pharaohs’ Golden Parade”

Abstract

This study examines the transformation of Orientalism in the postcolonial era through the case of Egypt. As formulated by Edward Said, Orientalism institutionalized the relationship between knowledge and power within Western representations of the East. In the postcolonial context, however, this discourse has become an active representational tool in the processes of nation-state identity formation and legitimation. The study analyzes the aesthetic, architectural, and discursive forms of the new Orientalism through Pharaohs’ Golden Parade (2021) and the Grand Egyptian Museum (2025). Pharaohs’ Golden Parade is interpreted, through Walter Benjamin’s concept of “politicized aesthetics” and Homi Bhabha’s notion of “mimicry,” as a self-orientalist performance in which national identity is visually reconstructed. The spectacle merges the legacy of ancient Egypt with the image of the modern state, staging national identity for both domestic and international audiences. The Grand Egyptian Museum is examined through Michel Foucault’s idea of the “regime of visibility” and Timothy Mitchell’s concept of the “visual order,” and is read as a discursive space where the colonial museum aesthetic is rearticulated in a postcolonial context. Its spatial configuration creates an ideological continuity between ancient heritage and the modern nation-state. The study shows that Orientalism today operates not merely as a form of domination but as an aesthetic and discursive resource in the production of national identity. In this sense, the “new Orientalism” highlights how the East reinterprets and represents its own history within a global framework.