Fares is rapidly emerging as a powerful figure in Vancouver’s social and creative scene, known for his ability to seamlessly blend different mediums of art and culture into groundbreaking performances. At just 25 years old, Fares is already making waves as a performance artist, creative director, and cultural disruptor.
Hailing from Alexandria, Egypt, his work challenges conventional boundaries, aiming to create spaces where art, business, and culture collide in unexpected and meaningful ways. Fares’s artistic vision is rooted in connection—he seeks to bring together people from communities that, by societal standards, are expected to stand against each other.
Through his work, he confronts stereotypes and fosters a sense of unity and shared understanding. His approach is unapologetically bold, pulling from his Egyptian heritage while incorporating futuristic and experimental elements into his performances.
Fares is also a two-time TEDx speaker, with his most recent work as the creative director for TEDx BBT being a defining moment in his career. TEDx BBT is more than an event for him—it is a platform where he is breaking down the barriers between art and business, injecting the traditional TEDx structure with a new wave of Gen Z energy and artistic chaos. His ability to create experiences that are both emotionally charged and visually stunning has made him a sought-after figure in both niche underground circles and larger mainstream events.
An aspiring author and entrepreneur, Fares’s work extends beyond the stage. His collective “Egyptian Street Meat,” founded with his sister Nada (Lionessa), reflects his deep connection to Egyptian culture and his commitment to reinterpreting it through a queer, diasporic lens. Whether he is creating high-tech holographic performances at global festivals or directing intimate creative spaces, Fares’s work is defined by authenticity, vulnerability, and an unyielding drive to push boundaries.
IN HIS WORDS
“I never saw myself as a creator with a capital ‘C.’ My original plan was to finish my business degree, get a stable job, and climb the corporate ladder. But every time I tried to align with that path, I was pulled toward art and expression. The turning point came when my sister Nada (Lionessa) and I launched Egyptian Street Meat and staged our first production, Electro-Djinn. The reaction was overwhelming—my art was not just appreciated but needed. That is when I knew: I was not just creating for myself, I was shaping perception and connecting to something both ancient and modern. I was a Creator.”
A BEGINNING IN EGYPT
“My creative path has not exactly been traditional. Growing up in Egypt, especially as a queer person, shaped my artistic lens in profound ways. I often felt like an outsider from the beginning, though it took time for me to fully understand and embrace that realization.
“I live in a constant state of imposter syndrome—in Egypt and here. From a very young age, maybe 11 or 12, I knew I was not normal. I knew I was never going to fit into the mold of what an Egyptian boy was supposed to be. And it was not just about queerness—it was about survival.
“There is this perception that if you grow up privileged, life is easier. But privilege means nothing when you are queer in Egypt. I lived through rape, blackmail, abuse, and conversion therapy—all while projecting the image of this golden child, this perfect, spoiled, only son. That perfect life? It was a fantasy I created to protect myself.
“It sounds dark, but I do not feel sad about it anymore. Those breaking points, those moments when I thought I would not survive, gave me a completely different lens on life. When you have already been broken, you stop fearing failure and fearing rejection. My art is not just about aesthetics—it is about emotional warfare. It is about pushing boundaries and exploring the uncomfortable.
“When I say my art, I do not just mean performance art. It is my creative direction, my curation, and the way I build spaces and experiences. No matter how small the budget is, I will always find a way to push perception—to create something that lingers, that stays with people after the lights go out.
“Egyptian Street Meat blends my cultural heritage with artistic expression, merging my queerness and drive to push boundaries. The name, inspired by my sister and me (specifically, our meaty derrières), reflects our playful take on Egyptian identity. My sister is a DJ with a Middle Eastern influence, and I work with cutting-edge technology to create holograms and performance art. Together, we fuse sound, visuals, and Egyptian culture through a queer, diasporic lens.
“Egyptian history is often viewed through a Western gaze, but we experience it through music, food, and street culture. Egyptian Street Meat reinterprets ancient rituals like the Zar ceremony and pharaonic symbols, making them messy, queer, and alive. It is not about reclamation but reinterpretation. My art and business intersect, blending personal truth with public expression — chaotic, strategic, and unfiltered at my core.
“I adapt easily to new environments but always leave my mark, whether in business or art. Both involve perception and emotion—anticipating reactions in business and feelings in art. The core intent is the same, though the languages differ.
“As a performance artist working with holograms and flow dancing, my art is an exploration of the surreal and futuristic. It challenges perceptions and creates spaces that transcend the ordinary, merging different worlds and offering a glimpse into alternate dimensions. It is about expanding boundaries and creating transformative experiences.
“I have performed at sex parties, niche festivals, and international stages like Shambhala. Each piece tells a unique story—political, personal, or abstract. At the core, my art explores emotional extremes—seduction and fear, euphoria and discomfort. I want the audience to feel something, even if it is confusion or unease.
“Vulnerability is central to my creative process, but finding the balance between emotional protection and sharing my story is challenging. I have learned to set boundaries, exposing enough to remain authentic while safeguarding my emotional well-being.
“After surviving trauma, I feel emotionally numb, yet art allows me to reconnect with my emotions. Vulnerability, for me, means exposing my cracks, not filling them. My art resonates because I present trauma raw and unresolved, helping others feel less alone in their brokenness. It is about connection, not fixing.
“It is said, “What does not kill you makes you stronger,” but I believe it changes you. It breaks you and rewires your nervous system. My art and the person I am today are the product of those fractures. The person you see now, Fares, exists because Ahmed died on the way to becoming him.”
A PERFORMANCE FOR THE AGES
“If I had an unlimited budget and creative freedom, I would create a full-scale operatic installation that blends classical and contemporary, think Philip Glass meets Arca. It would feature a full orchestra, choir, and ballet corps, set in an underground, industrial, brutalist space flooded with red and blue light.
“The performers would move between chaos and stillness, with structured ballet choreography melting into freeform movement, bodies colliding. The soundscape would layer strings, percussion, and electronic glitches, while the visuals—holograms and physical set pieces—would merge pharaonic symbols with cyberpunk architecture. The floor would shift beneath the audience, forcing them to feel the instability of the space.
“I would want a mix of people who would never normally be in the same room — art collectors next to underground queer performers, Wall Street brokers next to anarchist drag queens.
“Let them sit with the discomfort and figure out how to exist together. It would be sacred, violent, erotic, and terrifying all at once, like something ancient and futuristic at the same time. That is the performance I am building toward.
“I say, look at nature. Ecosystems are not built through harmony—they are shaped through competition, destruction, and adaptation. That is how art works, too. You break something whole apart and see what emerges from the pieces.
“That is why I am drawn to both performance art and business, they require you to sit with uncertainty. Trading is not about mastering the market; it is about adapting when it collapses. Art is not about perfecting the piece; it is about knowing when to let it unravel.”
GEN Z: UP FOR THE CHALLENGE
“Gen Z culture is characterized by fast-paced content and constant reinvention, which influences my work. While the speed can be overwhelming, it pushes me to adapt and evolve. My challenge is balancing the demand for constant content with staying true to my core vision. Despite assumptions about the shallowness of short-form content, I believe Gen Z has mastered distillation, filtering out what matters and cutting through the noise.
“At 25 years old, I have started two businesses, given two TED talks, worked eight jobs, attended three schools, lived with two exes, and performed internationally. This is not about chasing the next thing but about being conditioned to adapt. Gen Z thrives on change, and I apply that energy to my creative work, constantly evolving and reinventing. People may see it as inconsistency, but for me, it is about fearlessness and rejecting legacy structures.
“I am more interested in creating art that reflects the present than in making something “timeless.”
“I had to rebuild everything, my identity, my sense of safety, my ability to trust myself. For a long time, I did not feel like a person; I felt like a survival mechanism. Trauma reduces you to instinct, stripping away your creative drive because you are too busy just trying to survive.
“But at some point, when I finally felt safe enough, something cracked open. I realized survival is not the same as living, and I had been so focused on protecting myself that I had forgotten how to express myself. That is when the art started. It was not intentional—all the things I had buried, all the rage, grief, and desire, started leaking out. My first performances were messy and chaotic, but that is why they worked. They were real. I was not trying to impress anyone; I was just trying to survive differently.”
QUEERNESS AS IDENTITY
“Queerness is not just part of my identity, it is woven into the very fabric of my creative language. It gives me a powerful, unhinged energy that makes me fearless, especially when it comes to failure. Being queer means navigating a world that was never built for me, which builds resilience and a creative recklessness. I have learned to stop fearing rejection because rejection was already built into the system.
“My queerness shows up in my work through tension—the mix of seduction and discomfort, beauty and grit. Many of my performances feel almost contradictory: softness next to aggression, classical soundscapes interrupted by glitchy, chaotic beats, delicate movements suddenly becoming sharp and violent. This duality, this refusal to be defined, is the essence of queerness.
“Queerness also makes me aware of space — who gets to take up space, how it is structured, and what it feels like to exist in it as an outsider. That is why I am obsessed with creating immersive environments. I do not want people to just watch; I want them to feel my work in their bodies — to feel both welcome and unsettled. That is queerness. That is power.
“When I see a younger queer artist struggling to find their voice, the one piece of advice I always give them is this: stop trying to fit into a box. Queerness, by nature, is disruptive. Do not try to smooth out the edges to make it more marketable. Let it be jagged. Let it be hard to define. Do not be afraid to break things apart and rebuild them on your terms — that is where the real power is.
“I see myself as both a connector and someone carving out my own unique path. Egyptian Street Meat, TEDx, performance art—all of these are expressions of my creative journey, but they are also ways of breaking down the imaginary walls that separate different worlds. Art and business, tradition and modernity, order and chaos—these things have always belonged together, but we have been taught to see them as separate. Colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy.”
CREATOR & CREATIVE DIRECTOR
“I work with Andrew Aziz (Bear Bull Traders) as a Creative Director and took on the challenge of re-building TEDx BBT. I did not sit down and strategize in a traditional way.
“I approached it the same way I approach performance art, instinctively. I followed energy, not structure. I experimented. I pushed boundaries. I made it uncomfortable, on purpose. That is the core of my process: tension.
“Letting things unravel and then finding the beauty in the disorder. That is exactly what I am doing to TEDx BBT: Chaos. It is a beautiful, artistic chaos!
“I remember when Andrew asked me to join his team at BBT, halfway through a 12-course omakase dinner, I looked at him and asked, “How crazy are you thinking?” He replied, “As crazy as you.” That was when I knew it would work. We are an unlikely pair—the millennial trading tycoon and the queer performance artist—but our energy feeds off each other. Our friendship itself breaks the stereotype that art and business exist in separate worlds. They do not. They never did.
“I am exhilarated that TEDx BBT is not a conference. It is a cultural event—a sensory experience. Every corner of the venue tells a story. Every light, every sound, every transition—it is all intentional.
“It is immersive, chaotic, and deeply personal. A peek into the collision of art and business. A sliver of what the world could look like if we stopped trying to separate creativity from structure.
“Moving forward, I would love to collaborate with Ballet BC, VSO, and other fine art institutions! Integrative hologram performance art is such a powerful medium for storytelling and connection.”
Author Profile
- Helen Siwak is the founder of EcoLuxLuv Marketing & Communications Inc and publisher of Folio.YVR Luxury Lifestyle Magazine and PORTFOLIOY.YVR Business & Entrepreneurs Magazine. She is a prolific content creator, consultant, and marketing and media strategist within the ecoluxury lifestyle niche. Post-pandemic, she has worked with many small to mid-sized plant-based/vegan brands to build their digital foundations and strategize content creation and business development. Helen is the west coast correspondent to Canada’s top-read industry magazine Retail-Insider, holds a vast freelance portfolio, and consults with many of the world’s luxury heritage brands. Always seeking new opportunities and challenges, you can email her at helen@ecoluxluv.com.
Latest entries
FoF ☆ VIP EventsApril 21, 2025Rolls-Royce x Landa Global: Spirit & Skyline: A Private Unveiling of Artful Living
FoF ☆ VIP EventsApril 21, 2025Range Rover Hosts the Most Exclusive Winter Experience in Canada
FoF ☆ Charity & PhilanthropyApril 18, 2025A Night of Elegance & Purpose: The 2025 VSO Power of Music Gala
FoF ☆ Beauty & Self-CareApril 15, 2025Fuel Your Glow: Five Plant-Based Meal Deliveries That Make Healthy Eating Effortless
