WHEN THINGS DON’T work out as planned, a true Cairene uses her creativity and flexibility to turn the situation around, creating a fresh idea out of the raw material available.

The NOUBAR (NOmad Urban Breaking Art) project is a case in point. What started last May as a permanent exhibition space has turned into a roving exhibition concept.

Stefania Angarano, owner of Mashrabia Gallery in Downtown Cairo, originally set up Noubar 6 as a contemporary art gallery in an old apartment in Mounira, where she held her inaugural exhibit, Pop-up, last May.

Then unexpected challenges presented themselves, as they often do in Cairo; the place, on a tiny side street, was hard to find, and people in the neighborhood didn’t welcome it anyway.

So like a true Cairene, Angarano used her ingenuity to create something different: she decided to take the show on the road literally and curate exhibits in changing locations throughout Cairo under the name NOUBAR.

The original NOUBAR apartment was atmospheric and innovative, but there are hundreds of other fascinating Cairo locations to stimulate artists’ and viewers’ imaginations, thought Angarano.

“We found the project would be better this way, because we can choose a location for the work itself. There has to be something different to make people think Art shouldn’t be a routine,” says Angarano.

By putting art in unexpected places, she hopes to explore the interaction between art and space and prompt viewers to rediscover Cairo and reconsider their relationship with the city.

“Art’s job is like an arrow. It should get people to ask themselves, ‘Where am I? Who am I?’ ” says Angarano.

Her second NOUBAR exhibit, titled Two Single Rooms, is taking place at the Nile Cairo Hotel on Ramses Street, where Pascale Favre from Geneva and Mahmoud Khaled from Alexandria have created installations in two hotel rooms, expressing their experiences as visitors and outsiders to the city. To see this show, you ask for the room keys at the hotel reception.

Angarano’s latest and most ambitious NOUBAR project is planned for Ramadan, when she’ll be holding Light and Form, inviting artists to create light installations to be displayed at central Cairo venues including Mashrabia Gallery, the French Cultural Center, and Goethe Institute.

At time of press, the show is still coming together, but Angarano has several artists on board, including stained-glass artist Fatma El-Tanani, who plans to create a huge Ramadan lantern, and Mohammed Ganoubi, who works with candles and is making a monumental wax sculpture for the show. Other artists taking part include Samar Dorgham, Huda Lutfi, Ahmed Askalany, and Xavier Puigmarti, a Spanish artist who lives in Fayoum.

Angarano points out that the idea of a light show is not new. The cities of Turin, Italy and Lyon, France have both held major light installations on their streets. Light is linked to the idea of festivity and joy, so it’s particularly suited to the month of Ramadan, when the streets at night are beautiful and animated after a quiet day of fasting.

Angarano says that when she visited the Turin light show, she felt she was in a fairy tale. The concept is simple and not intellectual, but it evokes “dreams and delight,” says Angarano. “We forget that we need that.”