Dib has been working on an ongoing, powerful and labor-intensive series of works which she calls “generational walls.” She mounts a mix of building materials — including cement, gravel and sand — on wooden panels featuring obscure Arabic writings. The result is visually intense, stopping viewers in their tracks.
The inspiration behind the politically charged, grey-toned imagery is the graffiti found on the walls of Syria, Jordan and Palestine.
“People can anonymously say anything on them,” said Dib, referring to the protest nature of her work. “I think I found a part of myself in those walls, because I (have always been) reserved in what I had to say . . . A lot of it is about healing because I get to say what I want.”
Born in a Syrian refugee camp, Dib’s journey has taken her to the UAE and Chicago, where she studied art and exhibited some of her works. But it hasn't all been smooth sailing.
“You know how they say you face in your life a lot of your biggest fears? I think my biggest fear has always been uncertainty — familywise, country-wise, passport situations and my schooling. There was always that feeling of ‘Where is home?’ which I feel a lot of us really deal with,” Dib told Arab News in Dubai, where she now lives.
The artist is the descendent of a displaced Palestinian family who were forced out of their homes in 1948 as a result of the Israeli occupation. Her grandfather, then a child, reached Syria — mostly by walking — and settled there.
“There was always this inherited pain passed down to us,” she said.
Dib was born in the refugee camp of Khan al-Shih, in southern Syria, 27 kilometers from Damascus. She lived with her family on a farm, a place of which she has many happy memories and where she says her love of art began. Her grandfather built a treehouse for her and her cousins, and her aunt and uncle were artists and had a studio at the camp.
“When we were kids, we would just play with paint in their studio,” Dib recalled. “As a child, art was something for fun. In the farm, we used to always paint on furniture.”
When Dib was five, her father had the chance of a job in the UAE, and the family initially settled in Abu Dhabi.
During her mid-teens, Dib began to take art more seriously. After losing her mother at 15, art became her “alone time.”
“It was an outlet, but there were no thoughts — just doing. Making something was always part of my life,” she said.
In 2018, Dib wanted to experience life on her own and was able to travel to the US to study art. She enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and found her artistic voice, experimenting with textile art, ceramic, and neon signage. One of her teachers encouraged her to get out of her “reserved” self: “She kept pushing me and telling me, ‘There is more to your story that you need to be showing through your art’.”
Summer and Women continues throughout the summer and open daily at the Etihad Modern Art Gallery.
Saudi filmmaker Ryan Al-Bishri discusses ‘When the Light Shines’
The documentary about Layan Culture tells a remarkable story of artistic perseverance against the odds
Updated 18 April 2025
Arab News
DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s cultural scene is becoming increasingly significant both inside and outside of the Gulf region, with the Kingdom’s artists being collected by prestigious international institutions and fetching impressive prices at auction.
But a common gripe is that there is little archival material on those creatives who, decades ago — and without any of the institutional support the current generation now enjoy — built careers for themselves and inspired those who came after them.
In his documentary “When the Light Shines,” which screens at the Saudi Film Festival today, Saudi filmmaker Ryan Al-Bishri reveals one long-running initiative that bucks that trend. Layan Culture was officially established in 2007 by Prince Faissal bin Abdullah bin Mohammad Al-Saud and Princess Adelah bint Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, but stems from decades-long support for artists and creators from its founders.
Filmmaker Ryan Al-Bishri. (Dhasha Productions)
Layan is an archive, a collective, an “art-concept creator” and much more. It celebrates, promotes and is a patron of Saudi creatives. Its website states that its vision is also to “nurture artistic appreciation in the minds and hearts of the Saudi people.” However, despite its significance, Layan Culture is little-known, even inside the Kingdom. Al-Bishri hopes to change that.
Al-Bishri was first introduced to Prince Faissal through his father, the fashion designer Yahya Al-Bishri.
“I heard a lot of the stories through my father, of course. And then from Prince Faissal himself. And whenever they talked about it, it was just like ‘Wow!’ Stories I’d never heard —really interesting stuff from back in the 1960s,” Al-Bishri tells Arab News.
A few of those stories — of trips overseas or to then-rarely visited areas of Saudi Arabia as the prince and his friends attempted to gather information about the Kingdom’s artistic and cultural heritage — made it into “When the Light Shines.” Indeed, Al-Bishri says, one in particular was the spark for the whole project.
In the 1960s, American artist, photographer and explorer Gerhardt Liebmann entered Saudi Arabia through Yemen. “He just walked in — no visa or nothing — and started painting,” says Al-Bishri. Eventually, Liebmann was discovered by the authorities and deported.
Layan Culture’s managing director Ghada AlTobaishi (R) and art director Mazen Tarabishi. (Courtesy of Dhasha Productions)
Years later, Prince Faissal and others were on a trip to Geneva. As they were walking past one of its many art galleries, the prince spotted a painting of a mosque minaret. The gallery provided the name of the artist (yes, Liebmann) and Prince Faissal reached out to him. In 1981, Liebmann returned to the Kingdom. The minaret, it turned out, was that of a mosque in Taif. Over the next few years, until Liebmann’s death in 1985, the artist visited regularly, painting portraits of some of the Kingdom’s rulers and its landmarks. Those works form part of Layan Culture’s extensive collection related to Saudi Arabia, much of which the organization has restored, and much of which has never been on public display.
When putting the documentary together, Al-Bishri was himself left bemoaning the lack of material available from the 20th century. “There’s a lot of archive we wish we had,” he says. “Like, if there was any footage of Gerhardt and his journey and the people around him, that would have been really incredible.”
Fortunately, Al-Bishri did have access to Prince Faissal’s personal footage. “He had a team around him who filmed, and we had to gather everything we could to get this together. As you see in the film, everyone is really down-to-earth and welcoming. They never had any formalities about anything. Even the prince himself.”
That footage makes up some of the documentary’s most joyous scenes — including a camping trip to the Empty Quarter — in which you really get a sense of the camaraderie between this handful of people trying to create a lasting cultural legacy. As Al-Bishri’s father says in the film, “Across the Kingdom, there were only individual efforts by people, and only a few who were willing to support these few artists.”
Those words are echoed on screen by artist, sculptor and photographer Dr. Dia Aziz Dia, who was given a scholarship to study art in Italy, but on his return, he says, “I was surprised that society wasn’t ready to embrace art.”
“The prince connected a lot of people together. Without that, you’ve lost that sense of community. A lot of people might have given up,” says Al-Bishri. “Especially at a time where everyone was telling you what you’re doing is wrong. You know, my father got that for a long time: ‘This is not right, what you’re doing is very wrong.’ But finding a group of people who are there to support you, as an artist, was incredible. Now we have that, of course, the government, the ministries… all of this change, it’s wonderful. But it kind of feels like it misses the people before this — the people who fought, who struggled. We have to talk about them too. They started this. I want this film to bring people to Layan Culture so they can really appreciate the work that they’ve done.”
It certainly seems to have done that. Since its premiere at the Red Sea International Film Festival late last year, “When the Light Shines” — the title alludes to Prince Faissal’s feeling that now was the time to make some more noise about the work of Layan Culture — has won Best Film at the Munich New Wave Film Festival and been officially selected to compete at Mexico City’s Mirada Corta Short Film Festival, East Village New York Film Festival, and the Florence Film Awards, as well as appearing at several other festivals. And Al-Bishri hopes his short documentary will spawn a television series.
“There are so many stories that we discovered that even a feature-length film wouldn’t be enough,” he says. “What we want to do is make a short film about each artist where they talk about their journey. I think that would be great.”
His goal is a simple one.
“I want people to recognize the amount of work these people have put in. They sacrificed a lot and they had to fight a lot of people — a lot of family — just to do what they love,” he says. “A lot of these artists — a lot of these communities — were very quiet before and maybe they got used to that. But I think it’s very important that they should not be forgotten.”
The Indian artist’s “Liminal Gaps,” according to the gallery Nature Morte, “explores the areas ‘in between,’ or transitional spaces” and “reshapes perspectives on India’s evolving cultural identity.’ The installation acts as a 3D drawing through which the viewer can move. Singh has said her works “aim to counter established narratives.”
Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige
‘Message with(out) a code’
This work comes from the Lebanese duo’s ongoing series “Uncomformities” (a geological term indicating natural disasters and geological movements). That series began in 2016 when the artists started collecting earth core samples that “revealed the subterranean worlds of cities omnipresent in the personal imaginaries: Athens, Paris, Beirut and Tripoli.
Dhewadi Hadjab
‘Untitled’
This work comes from a series of paintings that the Algerian-born artist created last year, which were presented in Paris in November. At the time, art critic Anael Pigeat wrote: “He shows unreal images of positions impossible to maintain: several times in one single time and several bodies in one single body.”
Stars and showrunner discuss the final episodes of the acclaimed series
Updated 18 April 2025
Shyama Krishna Kumar
DUBAI: As “Andor” returns this week on Disney+ for its second and final season, the acclaimed “Star Wars” spinoff barrels toward the events of 2016’s “Rogue One,” in which rebel spy Cassian Andor gives his life on a mission that triggers the events of the 1977 film that started it all: “Star Wars: A New Hope.”
For Diego Luna, who reprises his role as the titular rebel hero, that inevitability heightens the emotional stakes.
“As the events kept getting closer to ‘Rogue One’ it made every moment meaningful and full of complexity, because you know that that very dramatic fatal finale is coming,” Luna tells Arab News. “Therefore, every moment of life, every chance these characters have to breathe, is like a reminder of the end approaching. At least from my perspective, I was always thinking, ‘Oh my god, poor guy, he doesn't know what's coming.’”
Tony Gilroy and Genevieve O’Reilly on the set of 'Andor' season two. (Supplied)
Showrunner Tony Gilroy adds: “Knowing where you’re ending up is the most liberating thing. It frees up everything else.”
The new season will also bring closure for other characters in Andor’s life — some of whom aren’t in “Rogue One,” notably Adria Arjona’s Bix Caleen and Stellan Skarsgard’s machinating revolutionary Luthen Rael.
“I got really lucky this season; I got to dig a bit deeper than I did in in season one,” says Arjona. “Bix goes through so much this season, so much healing and so much heartbreak. Every scene is a challenge. There's not a single scene in this show any of us can say was easy. You never let your guard down when you're handed such a great piece of material. It feels like a gift and I didn't take a single moment lightly.”
“Andor” charts the title character’s transformation from disinterested, cynical nobody into a rebel hero on his way to an epic destiny. Season one, which debuted in 2022, was set five years before “Rogue One” and covered the first year of that journey. The 12 episodes of the final season are split into four equal “chapters,” each moving us a year forward.
Adria Arjona in 'Andor' season two. (Supplied)
“There are 25 to 30 regular characters,” Gilroy says. “And the questions are: Who lives? Who dies? Who triumphs? Who fails? Who betrays whom?”
British star Ben Mendelsohn, who reprises his role as the menacing Imperial officer Orson Krennic, tells Arab News: “I hope the audience takes away an experience of seeing two sides going to war. And I hope somewhere inside themselves, they can think both of these sides are fighting for what they think is a good idea, and ask themselves, ‘Which one do I prefer?’”
While “Andor” draws heavily from real-world history, Luna insists it isn’t designed to mirror current global politics.
“This is a story about revolution and about a community getting their hands dirty and coming together. It’s inspiring, yes, and it'll always be inspiring, because, throughout history, change has always been needed. However, we weren’t thinking about today,” says Luna. “We were concerned with being honest in telling this story within the framing of ‘Star Wars.’
“Basically, the writing of Tony Gilroy reflects everything he has gone through and the world he’s lived in. It's all there,” he continues. “There are references to 10 years ago, to 50 years ago, to the history we know about who we are and why we're here. And that's always going to be pertinent, not just today. Probably in 50 years, someone could see ‘Andor’ and be, like, ‘Is this about today?’”
KARACHI: Pakistani actor and director Yasir Hussain has said he is willing to pause his career and stay home with his young son if his wife, acclaimed actress Iqra Aziz, required him to, highlighting his support for her flourishing career in the entertainment industry.
Aziz and Hussain, one of Pakistan’s most talked-about celebrity couples, tied the knot in December 2019 following a public proposal at the Lux Style Awards that year. The couple welcomed their son, Kabir, in July 2021 and have since carefully balanced their personal life with demanding professional commitments.
Aziz is currently starring in the television drama Paradise, while Hussain is performing as the director and male lead in the theater production Monkey Business, running at the Karachi Arts Council.
Despite their shared background in showbiz, the two have taken different routes, with Aziz focusing largely on television dramas and Hussain leaning toward theater and directing.
“Today, if she [Iqra] tells me to leave everything and take care of Kabir because she is doing a film, I’ll leave everything,” Hussain told Arab News in an interview this week. “Obviously, my child comes first for me.”
He said fatherhood and marriage had brought a noticeable change in his temperament.
“I was very hyper before marriage,” he said.. “It’s a good change and I am liking it.”
Hussain said being part of the same profession had helped him and his wife better understand each other’s demanding schedules.
“If I was married to a doctor, maybe, so I don’t know her profession, she doesn’t know mine,” he said.
“So, maybe there would have been some issues in between us like what are these shift timings or it’s not fair that you go to the theater everyday all day. So, there would have been issues perhaps. But now we know how it works.”
Still, Hussain said he made a conscious effort to maintain professional boundaries, including not seeking roles opposite his wife on screen.
“I think there is a gap of 10 or 11 years between Iqra and I,” he added. “I want her to work with actors her age. I don’t want her screen age to increase for no reason because of me.”
Hussain also said he didn’t seek to share the small screen with his wife just because she was a famous actress.
Previously, though, the couple have worked together in the drama serial Jhooti while they were engaged, and later in the mini-series Aik Thi Laila, which Hussain directed. He has also produced Paradise, which Aziz is currently starring in alongside actor Shuja Asad.
“Marriage is a very personal thing and I don’t want to show that chemistry onscreen in a TV drama at least.”
And though they were both part of the entertainment industry, Hussain said they maintained clear professional independence.
“We have a life as individuals as well. We don’t influence each other on the career choices we wish to make,” he said.
That said, he expressed a preference for Aziz to avoid dark or gritty roles.
“I don’t want Iqra to do films like Javed Iqbal or Taxali Gate or the series Khatarnaak that I’m shooting in Lahore,” he said.
“I don’t want her to get into such dark content. She is a very lively person and has the image of a happy-go-lucky individual. I don’t want her image to be dark or political.”
DUBAI: US singer and songwriter Benson Boone will open this year’s Yasalam After-Race Concerts, part of the Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend in December.
Boone, known for chart-topping hits like “Beautiful Things” and “Slow It Down,” is set to take the stage at Etihad Park on Dec. 4.
