Five young women photographers from the Surrey Institute of Art and Design recently spent a week in Jeddah photographing its people and its sights. The photographers are part of a project aiming to bring about understanding between different cultures. “Images of Islam” is part of the Connecting Futures Project which began three years ago through the British Council.
“Over 200 projects around the world have been conducted during the three years to bring young people between the ages of 15 to 25 together for dialogue and mutual interests and to talk about their different cultures,” explained Sally Anderson, a coordinator of Connecting Futures. Tools used in the project include dance, music, art, but for Saudi Arabia, a decision was made to include photography.
A few months ago, a group of students from Dar Al-Hekma College for Girls in Jeddah went to England and held an exhibition of the photographs they took there reflecting “Islam in the UK.” Now five women from the UK have come to Jeddah and took photographs reflecting “Images of Islam.” There will be an exhibition of their photographs at Dar Al-Hekma in June and then another in the UK; a joint exhibition will be held later in the year.
With the help of Samar Al-Toeimi, education advisor at the British Council in Jeddah, the girls — Natasha Caruana, Michelle Du Bois, Kathryn Wright, Heidi Marshall and Rebecca Leppard were taken to Al-Balad (Jeddah’s original city center), the Naseef House, some mosques, museums, restaurants and malls as well as into the desert. The first thing they had to get used to in addition to the hot weather was wearing the abaya but they soon got used to it. Keeping the veil on their head, however, was a different story and they soon gave up trying. “What surprised me was that women can’t drive; that’s such a strange thing for us,” said Kathryn Wright. They were glad to find that life was not as restricted as they had heard. People were curious about them but were also polite and friendly. The girls were disappointed in not being able to photograph women or the Al-Balad souk (market) because they did not have a permit to do so. “This is alien to us. We were restricted in what and who we could photograph but, at the same time, that made us focus on the photos we could have taken,” said Michelle Du Bois. They were also not allowed to photograph people on the Corniche and they were amazed at how late people stayed out at night.
While in Jeddah, they went diving in the Red Sea and took underwater photographs and went into mosques and photographed them which they felt privileged to have been allowed to do. They were also invited to the homes of some of the girls at Dar Al-Hekma. They developed close relationships with some of the Saudi girls and enjoyed talking to them. “We have many similarities and interests and talked about different issues,” said Rebecca Leppard. With all those outings came a wide variety of food. “People are so generous. We ate so much food,” commented Natasha Caruana; she was concerned about the weight she gained. They were surprised by the number of malls in Jeddah. “I didn’t expect to see so many malls and well-known brands. I didn’t realize shopping was so important here,” said Heidi Marshall. Another difference they noticed between here and the UK were the wide streets. They wished they had had more time to go places outside Jeddah, especially Riyadh which they heard so much about.
The young women bought many souvenirs including jewels and abayas which they intend to wear for their graduation ceremony. They were not apprehensive about their safety here and no one tried to talk them out of coming. Now they have the challenge of presenting their unique and wonderful experience in order to counter the rather limited images of Saudi Arabia in the British media. Before doing this, however, they have to develop their pictures and decide which pictures to use in the exhibition.
