Sharjah Museums Authority to exhibit replicas of artifacts that blind visitors can touch
Sharjah Museums Authority to exhibit replicas of artifacts that blind visitors can touch/node/2273881/art-culture
Sharjah Museums Authority to exhibit replicas of artifacts that blind visitors can touch
‘Sacred Words, Timeless Calligraphy: Highlights of Exceptional Calligraphy from the Hamid Jafar Qur’an Collection’ on display at the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization (Supplied)
Sharjah Museums Authority to exhibit replicas of artifacts that blind visitors can touch
The specialist ‘tactile tours’ will be led by guides with extensive experience of working with visually impaired people
The initiative is part of the authority’s efforts to offer more inclusive museum experiences for people with disabilities
Updated 23 March 2023
Arab News
DUBAI: The Sharjah Museums Authority is putting on display replicas of some artifacts from its collections so that visitors with visual impairments can touch them.
The specialist ‘tactile tours’ will begin next month, the Emirates News Agency reported. In addition to being able to get their hands on the models of objects as part of the interactive museum experience, visually impaired visitors will also be offered brochures in braille containing additional information about the exhibits.
One of treasures a replica of which has been made is a copy of the Qur’an attributed to Uthman ibn Affan from the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization’s Abu Bakr Gallery of Islamic Faith. It is written in Kufic script on parchment made from animal skins.
Other replicas at the same gallery include a 6-meter-long Kaaba curtain decorated with Qur’anic verses and Islamic patterns, and a Qur’an that is one of the most prominent works by calligraphist Ahmed Karahisari.
At Sharjah Archaeology Museum, the replicas include a 7,000-year-old necklace discovered in Al-Buhais 18 cemetery, and a rectangular, soft-stone box dating back to between 2500 and 2000 B.C.
The tactile tours will be led by guides with extensive experience of working with visually impaired people. More replicas are due to be added next year.
Manal Ataya, the authority’s director-general, said the initiative is in line with the organization’s efforts to support people with disabilities and inclusion.
“At SMA we aim to provide an accessible and more inclusive museum experience for people with all disabilities by offering them equal access to our museums, displays and programs,” Ataya said.
The authority has launched a number of initiatives for people with disabilities in recent years, including an “Autism-Friendly Museums” project in 2018 that was the first of its kind in the Gulf region, according to the Emirates News Agency.
‘Banan’ event weaves local, international heritage in Riyadh
Handicrafts Week highlights community-building aspect of multinational crafts, including woodworking, blacksmithing, weaving and embroidery
Updated 09 June 2023
Nada Alturki
RIYADH: A handicrafts event in Riyadh is shedding light on local and international heritage passed down from one generation to the next.
Titled “Banan,” meaning fingertips in Arabic, the Saudi International Handicrafts Week is highlighting the community-building aspect of multinational crafts, including woodworking, blacksmithing, weaving and embroidery, among others.
The event, which kicked off on Tuesday, will run until June 12 at Riyadh Front.
The event invites craft enthusiasts to engage in hands-on workshops. (AN photo by Huda Bashatah)
“There’s no doubt that handicrafts play an important part in economic and cultural projects, and are a factor for creating job and investment opportunities, in addition to their role in preserving cultural heritage and strengthening national identity,” Saudi Deputy Minister of Culture Hamed Fayez said.
The event also invites craft enthusiasts to engage in hands-on workshops throughout the week, gathering centuries of collective stories and legacies from across the globe in one platform.
From Mexico, Regina Velasco Marin and Alberto Lopez Gomez are highlighting the tradition of weaving, filigree design and openwork embroidery techniques using existing cotton materials, like clothing or drapes. The fabric is undone, and cotton threads are reused to create unique patterns and wearable pieces on a backstrap loom.
The event invites craft enthusiasts to engage in hands-on workshops. (AN photo by Huda Bashatah)
“I’m proud to be representing five generations of artisans, from my great grandmother to myself. It’s so surprising that my culture has expanded and reached Saudi Arabia. I’m very thankful to my mom for teaching me all of this, and I’m especially proud of her and my grandmother now that I’m here,” Marin told Arab News.
Pottery artist Zaki Al-Gharrash, from the Eastern region of the Kingdom, showcases the unique soil that characterizes the governorate of Al-Qatif and gives off the pale green hue in pottery production.
FASTFACT
Fahad Al-Shammary from Hail uses the stems of Saudi’s national treasures, palm trees, to craft unique doors for interior decorating and miniature ones for gifting.
“This was a hobby first that turned into a profession. If it wasn’t for my love and passion for it, I wouldn’t have kept pursuing it, because it is tiring,” Al-Gharrash said, demonstrating the elongated process, from extracting soil from deep underground, to drying out the product, then working it to clay.
The event invites craft enthusiasts to engage in hands-on workshops. (AN photo by Huda Bashatah)
While his father, years ago, made clay pans and water coolers out of necessity, people now look for antiques, driving the craft’s demand. More people are also recognizing the benefits of drinking from clay cups.
“(It) actually revives its qualities, making water more alkaline and healthier for humans, and gives it life again after it dies in plastic. It also keeps it cool, especially in the desert,” the artisan said.
While the profession has become commercialized, it takes an artisan to preserve the unique qualities of pottery during production.
The event invites craft enthusiasts to engage in hands-on workshops. (AN photo by Huda Bashatah)
Fahad Al-Shammary from Hail uses the stems of Saudi’s national treasures, palm trees, to craft unique doors for interior decorating and miniature ones for gifting. Utilizing the abundance of palms on his family farm, he has managed to take part in a profitable hobby for 15 years and counting.
“This event brings together all the cultures of the north, south, east, and west and its heritage … it’s our ancestor’s, so we have to preserve it,” he said.
Banan is an opportunity for artisans to educate others on the history of their regions and also sell their products through 11 sections of the space.
The event invites craft enthusiasts to engage in hands-on workshops. (AN photo by Huda Bashatah)
Italian handcraft store Lisa Tibaldi Terra Mia attracts customers with the charm of its story. The store’s modern jewelry utilizes plants sourced from the Aurunca land, located between Naples and Rome. “After a (special process), they can be made into a jewel, into a semi-precious material,” Ludovica Zanon, a representative of the business, told Arab News.
The store also carries a collection of authentic silk scarves influenced by the natural palette of the region, with some of the collections delicately printed in native butterflies and ocean waves. A home decor line by Lisa Tibaldi Terra Mia also champions sustainability using 3D printing and biodegradable organic materials.
Zanon said: “Our vision is in strict contact with our territory, so we like to make and craft all our things (sustainably) in Italy because we want to help our territory and make it valuable and not waste our land.
“It’s (very emotional) for me to come here and represent my country and city because Aurunca land is a small territory between Rome and Naples, so it’s important to us to bring our land here and be proud of that.”
Saudi digital artist adapts video-game heroes with Arabian elements
Mosques, falcons and Arabic typography used in her work
Also produces original art for YouTube channels and books
Updated 09 June 2023
Rahaf Jambi
RIYADH: Saudi digital artist Jewmana Al-Jifri has carved a niche for herself in the gaming and anime industry with illustrations marked by elements drawn from Arab culture.
Al-Jifri, 32, forayed into the world of illustration by chance. “My father’s gift of a tablet to me in 2009 marked my accidental introduction into the world of digital art. I used to be a traditional painter, but after getting the tablet, I committed all of my time and energy to mastering digital sketching,” Al-Jifri told Arab News in a recent interview.
Over time, Al-Jifri’s passion for video games inspired her to seek greater creativity in her work. Her illustrations are inspired by video-game heroes and characters from “Final Fantasy” and “Assassin’s Creed.”
Al-Jifri’s illustrations are inspired by video-game heroes and characters from “Final Fantasy” and “Assassin’s Creed.” (Supplied)
One of her reworkings is a character from “Assassin Creed” seen with a sambosa, a popular snack that Muslims consume during iftar in Ramadan in the Gulf. She also uses mosques, Arabian falcons and Arabic typography to give her illustrations a Middle Eastern look.
“My mother is a superb artist, and she gave me the inspiration to start drawing when there was no current technology available. I learned to draw exclusively (from) the TV screen. And as the years went by, video games became a major source of inspiration for me because they offer more intricate drawings than cartoons do in a variety of different aspects, such as costume and character design.”
Al-Jifri’s all-time favorite is “Assassin’s Creed” because she considers it different from other video games. “It tells a lot about (real) historical stories and events that are mentioned in the history books.
Al-Jifri’s illustrations are inspired by video-game heroes and characters from “Final Fantasy” and “Assassin’s Creed.” (Supplied)
“It allows players to see famous historical cities and monuments in various eras such as Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and Santa Maria del Fiore in Italy and Hagia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul.”
Al-Jifri started displaying her work on social media, and in 2021, joined the official Assassin’s Creed Rebellion Community Server on Discord as she was eager to have her work recognized by the gaming community.
BACKGROUND
Al-Jifri started displaying her work on social media, and in 2021, joined the official Assassin’s Creed Rebellion Community Server on Discord as she was eager to have her work recognized by the gaming community.
The community allows players of the game to network, compete in challenges, and provides a platform for talented individuals to showcase their creative skills.
Al-Jifri’s illustrations are inspired by video-game heroes and characters from “Final Fantasy” and “Assassin’s Creed.” (Supplied)
She published her first work on the community’s network in May 2021, “thanks to the continuous motivation from the members. In October 2022, I was selected as an interactive artist in the server to volunteer to create digital stickers for the server with the help of an artist from Malaysia, and we finished creating the posters last April.”
The poster highlights stickers that could be used by the community to display a range of emotions, from surprise to anger. It has been posted permanently on the community’s server.
Al-Jifri not only adapts existing characters but produces original work for clients, encompassing video games, YouTube channels and books.
Al-Jifri’s illustrations are inspired by video-game heroes and characters from “Final Fantasy” and “Assassin’s Creed.” (Supplied)
“In 2018, some players in FFXIV (Final Fantasy XIV) knew me and offered me a commission to make a special drawing for them for their desktop. Honestly, my target back then, (by) accepting these commissions, was to pay for a new tablet and a new program for developing my digital art skills,” she said.
“I previously turned my passion into freelancing where many clients would come to me for character designs and I faced a lot of criticism, but I overcame these things and changed the concept of digital art for the better,” Al-Jifri added.
Her passion for illustrating earned her a Final Fantasy runners-up prize for one of the best shield designs for the game in 2018. “This is only the beginning and I am still developing my technical skills to do more when I get opportunities like this.”
Al-Jifri’s illustrations are inspired by video-game heroes and characters from “Final Fantasy” and “Assassin’s Creed.” (Supplied)
Al-Jifri believes that stepping into the digital world is important for artists who want to get global recognition.
“This made it easier for many painters to share their work around the world, not just in one city. In recent years, I’ve gained a lot of followers and fans who inspire me with their admiration for my work, to produce more graphics of the well-known video game series ‘Assassin’s Creed,’ as a historical game between reality and fantasy that varies in its curation.”
In future, Al-Jifri wants to set up a character-design institute for creatives who want to collaborate and connect with video game developers.
Simone Fattal explores the many cultures of the Mediterranean in Venice
The Lebanese artist’s installation also highlights the links between Venice and the Gulf
Updated 09 June 2023
Rebecca Anne Proctor
VENICE: Paris-based Lebanese artist Simone Fattal’s latest work is currently on display in the Church of San Lorenzo in Venice, Italy.
Fattal’s powerful installation is titled “Sempre il mare, uomo libero, amerai!” which translates from Italian to “Always the sea, freeman, you will love!” from the poem “Man and the Sea” by Charles Baudelaire, which describes the waves of the sea as the mirror of the soul. The sea, notes Baudelaire in his poem, is a natural and feminine element that generates and nourishes. Fattal’s work similarly offers a poignant and loving reflection of the Mediterranean, its constant changes, and the cultures it has separated and unified.
Simone Fattal’s installation in Venice. (Supplied)
“Through my work I try to transcend the actual surface of things to make it more meaningful by recollecting old myths and stories,” Fattal tells Arab News. “I think this reconnection can bring a lot to a person, inside. There were hard times before us and there are hard times ahead of us.
“I create abstract art because it offers silence and silence is a constituent to art otherwise you can’t really go into it — art needs to be meditative,” she continues.
The works are part of the exhibition “Thus Waves Come in Pairs,” a line from the poem “Sea and Fog” by the late Etel Adnan. It runs at Ocean Space in Venice until Nov. 5 alongside other new commissions by Petrit Halilaj and Alvaro Urbano.
“There are many Mediterraneans: the geographical, the historical, the philosophical … the personal, the one we swim in,” Adnan once said. “It’s an experience to swim, it is something you can’t explain to somebody who never swam. This feeling of being held up by this water.”
Simone Fattal’s ‘Contrast.’ (Supplied)
Fattal’s installation comprises two sculptures that occupy the empty niches of the church’s large Baroque altar. One is “Young Boy,” an abstract figure colored burnt yellow. The other is “Bricola,” a large ceramic sculpture with rich natural hues inspired by the eponymous Venetian wooden poles used to guide boats through the city’s canals evocative of navigation. It also includes two monumental abstract figures “Máyya and Ghaylán” — a pair of lovers celebrated in classical Arabic poetry, whom Fattal separates and joins by rectangular glass plates on the ground evoking a golden sea — and “Contrast,” a series of pearly spheres made from pink Murano glass onto which Fattal has engraved an inscription in lingua franca, a mestizo language drawn from Italian, French, Spanish and Arabic that was once spoken by pirates, merchants, prisoners and slaves along the shores of the Mediterranean. These spheres lie on the floor on the opposite side of the space from the altar.
The inscription on the spheres is taken from the text of the earliest evidence of lingua franca, “Contrasto della Zerbitana” (The Conflict with the Woman of Djerba), a 14th-century poem about an argument between a sailor and the mother of a woman he mistreated, set on the island of Djerba, off the coast of Tunisia.
Poetry, as Fattal demonstrates in these new works, serves as a vehicle for past and present transmission from one language and culture to another. She portrays the complexities and forgotten memories that shape the colonial past and neocolonial present of the Mediterranean and its varied cultures and peoples.
“I wanted to link my work here not only to the church and the Mediterranean but also to the Gulf and the history of pearl trading there,” she tells Arab News. “I was also interested in how the Arab world connected to Venice through the trade of pearls — that’s where Venetian women once got their pearls: from the Gulf.”
Fattal also stresses that the works demonstrate other materials and skills that originated in the Orient, including glass blowing and velvet. Her works, at once poignant and melancholic, aim to resurrect the crucial historical link between Venice and the Orient, the East and the West, and show how the result of such trade is still with us — through cultures, traditions, languages, and art.
As Fattal notes: “All that you see in Venice that is beautiful are symbols of exchange of beauty that took place via the Mediterranean Sea.”
Tom Cruise to attend Middle East premiere of ‘Mission Impossible’ in Abu Dhabi
Updated 06 June 2023
Arab News
DUBAI: The UAE is set to host the Middle East premiere of the eagerly awaited “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” at a red-carpet event at Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace on June 26.
The film’s screening will be attended by Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie.
Some of the movie’s scenes were shot in the Liwa desert and the Midfield Terminal in the UAE capital’s airport.
McQuarrie, Cruise, and the cast and crew shot in the emirate for almost two weeks in 2021 with the support of the Abu Dhabi Film Commission and other local production partners, including twofour54 Abu Dhabi.
It marks the second time the Paramount Pictures’ franchise has filmed in Abu Dhabi following the HALO jump sequence for “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” in 2018.
Khalfan Al-Mazrouei, acting director general of Creative Media Authority, said: “Hosting the premiere of ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’ is an honor for Abu Dhabi and is also a reflection of the position the emirate holds as one of the Middle East and North Africa region’s top film and TV locations.
“We are proud to have worked with such a genre-defining franchise once again and it demonstrates how Abu Dhabi has everything filmmakers need to successfully complete such large, complex productions.”
An interesting fact that Al-Theeb revealed was that people from all walks of life living in the Arabian Peninsula had the freedom to engrave their thoughts, feelings, poetry, or curses on rocks
Updated 04 June 2023
Tareq Al-Thaqafi
MAKKAH: Many monuments in the Arabian Peninsula have been found bearing inscriptions in the Thamudic, Nabataean and Safaitic languages invoking evil upon those who try to tamper with or obliterate them.
One such Thamudic inscription, dating between the end of the first century AD to the fourth century AD, was found by a Saudi citizen named Khalid Al-Fraih in the Tabhar area northwest of Tabuk, which is dotted with many ancient inscriptions and monuments.
FASTFACT
People from all walks of life living in the Arabian Peninsula had the freedom to engrave their thoughts, feelings, poetry, or curses, on rocks contrary to those who lived in Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt, where inscriptions were exclusively written by the leaders or those who with a high status.
Professor of ancient Arabic writings, Dr. Suleiman Al-Theeb, told Arab News that this Thamudic inscription is written on the facade of one of the mountains of Wadi Tabhar. “What is interesting is that they used curses so that evil befalls … those who distort and sabotage … it. This type of curse is well known in the Thamudic, Nabataean, Palmyrian and Safaitic inscriptions.”
People who inhabited the area centuries ago were pagans who indulged in idol worship.
“This curse was written, most likely, to intimidate and scare away those who want to destroy their god … and the purpose of intimidation by cursing is to maintain and keep what has been written,” he said.
In order to prevent others from attacking their rocks, they used to write on them words of threat, curse and intimidation of the wrath of the gods. The fear was real and people would then refrain from destroying the rocks.
Dr. Suleiman Al-Theeb, Professor of ancient Arabic writings
Al-Theeb also revealed that the writings and inscriptions on rocks were similar to published material that we see today. “If two people disagree or a problem occurred between them, they would usually attack the rock of others. In order to prevent others from attacking their rocks, they used to write on them words of threat, curse and intimidation of the wrath of the gods. The fear was real and people would then refrain from destroying the rocks.”
An interesting fact that Al-Theeb revealed was that people from all walks of life living in the Arabian Peninsula had the freedom to engrave their thoughts, feelings, poetry, or curses on rocks, contrary to those who lived in Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt, where inscriptions were exclusively written by leaders or those who with high status.
The professor stressed that these inscriptions are very important as they depict the history of previous civilizations, and should be monitored and documented by specialists to preserve them.
