Knowledge is Sweeter than Honey
- Gallery: Room 25
- Maker: Susan Hefuna
- Made in: Cairo (city)
- Date: 2007
- Object type: sculpture, window-ventilator
- Materials: wood
- Museum number: 2008,2020.1
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
Before you stands the sculpture "Knowledge is Sweeter than Honey," a window-screen crafted by artist Susan Hefuna. The piece is a modern interpretation of the traditional Arabic mashrabiya—a wooden lattice screen often found on oriel windows.
Made in Cairo in 2007, this work is carved from wood and stained with black ink. It features an outer frame and five internal windows formed by intricate, lathe-turned geometric elements glued together. Within the three largest windows are smaller pieces arranged to spell out words in Arabic script.
Hefuna, whose Egyptian-German background deeply influences her art, plays with themes of visibility and identity. Here, the mashrabiya's usual function of concealment and privacy is reimagined. The cut-out windows allow views both in and out, challenging traditional expectations of space and perception.
See it in person
Knowledge is Sweeter than Honey is on display in Room 25 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and take a photo of it to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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