AL BURDAENDOWMENT

Al BurdA EndowmEnt 2019 ministry of Culture and Knowledge development, united Arab EmiratesPO Box 17, Abu Dhabi, UAE | www.mckd.gov.ae | www.burda.ae Editor Myrna AyadCopy Editors Rania Habib, Bassam Mahmoud Rjoub and Anna Wallace-ThompsonArt director Kate ScottJunior designer Engy Ehabtranslator Abu Bakr Al Ani Published by Zaabeel Printing PressPO Box 5143, Dubai, UAE | T +971 4 262 6171 | info@zppdubai.com | www.zppdubai.com Cover design by Kate Scotttexts © The Authors

All images copyright the artistsPhotography, artist portraits –Pages 30-31,34 by Leo JamesPages 42-43 by Ali AlsumayinPages 66-67 by Mohammed ChrouroPages 78-79 by Atif SaeedPages 90-91 by Alex CalluengPages 102-103 by Tim BowditchPages 114-125 by Daydreamers DesignPages 126-127 by Francesco Scotti All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical means without the prior permission of the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development, United Arab Emirates.

CONTENTSPreface 08

Foreword 10

Her Excellency Noura Al Kaabi

Essay: Celebrating the Past through the Prism of the Present 12Dr Venetia Porter

Essay: Defining the Imaginary 14

Dr Ridha Moumni

Artist Interviews Ebtisam Abdulaziz 18

Ammar Al Attar 30Dana Awartani 42

Khalid Al Banna 54Zoulikha Bouabdellah 66

Aisha Khalid 78Aljoud Lootah 90

Nasser Al Salem 102Stanley Siu 114

Fatima Uzdenova 126

Acknowledgements 139

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PREFACEtechnology, music, food, architecture and heritage. The aim was to engage and inspire younger generations with a deeper connection to their cultural identity and to strengthen the position of Islamic culture.

The Festival also saw the launch of the Al Burda Endowment, an initiative that seeks to expand the reach of Islamic culture by recognising creative pioneers who embrace experimentation and reinterpretation in their approach to Islamic art and culture. A sum of AED 500,000 has been distributed among 10 artists – Ebtisam Abdulaziz (UAE), Ammar Al Attar (UAE), Dana Awartani (Palestine/Saudi Arabia), Khalid Al Banna (UAE), Zoulikha Bouabdellah (Algeria/France), Aisha Khalid (Pakistan), Aljoud Lootah (UAE), Nasser Al Salem (Saudi

Arabia), Stanley Siu (Hong Kong) and Fatima Uzdenova (UK/UAE/North Caucasus). Works range from sculpture, textile-based work and photography to installation, virtual reality, experiential projects and more.

This publication features in-depth interviews with the artists and illustrates behind-the-scenes images of the making of their works, offering visual and editorial insight into the process of production, taking place in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Morocco, the USA, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Russia and beyond. Additionally, two scholars and curators have authored essays – Dr Venetia Porter and Dr Ridha Moumni each contribute enlightening texts on contemporary Islamic art and its roots.

Al Burda is an initiative founded by the UAE Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development to empower creativity in Islamic art and to recognise distinguished artists from across the Islamic world. The name itself is derived from Qasidat Al Burda (‘Ode of the Mantle’), an epic poem about the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), by the 12th-century Sufi mystic Imam Al Busiri. In honour of the birthday of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), Al Burda was first launched in 2004 as the Al Burda Award, and seeks to cultivate Islamic cultural and artistic development by supporting the Arabic language, Arabic literature and traditional Islamic arts. The Al Burda Award is a platform for poets, calligraphers and artists whose work is inspired by the character and life of the Prophet Mohammed

(PBUH), in addition to the aesthetics of Islamic art and culture. The Award has traditionally celebrated the disciplines of Classical poetry, Nabati poetry, Classical calligraphy, Modern calligraphy and Islamic ornamentation.

In 2018, the Award welcomed the first edition of the Al Burda Festival in a bid to foster wider dialogue on the intersection of traditional and contemporary Islamic culture in today’s world. Comprising a fully-fledged programme of talks, performances and exhibitions, the event gathered creative leaders and personalities from around the globe to collaborate, exchange insights and share ideas. It featured an interactive series of plenary sessions, workshops, masterclasses, performances and exhibitions, exploring themes such as

both prompts audiences to marvel at its grandeur, and also encourages them to acknowledge the details of a space.

Speaking of the concept of space, North Caucasus native Fatima Uzdenova addresses the state of barzakh – a place after death and before Resurrection. In her submission, she urges audiences to contemplate and meditate, offering us a moment of self-reflection “amidst the chaos of capitalist life”. As Uzdenova offers us a moment of introspection, so too does Saudi artist Nasser Al Salem through a structure that invites the viewer in to consider Paradise. Inspired by a hadith, the room evokes a sense of infinity, and very nearly pleads with the viewer to imagine beyond what the eye has ever seen. Similarly, Emirati-born Ammar Al Attar brings us into a mawlid via virtual reality. Essentially, we watch a performance, become almost a part of it and rejoice in the Prophet’s birthday.

Dubai-based Aljoud Lootah interrupts space with Falak, a barrier featuring camel leather that explores her identity as a Muslim and an Emirati to propose a space of coexistence as well as a celebration of Islamic geometric patterning. Emirati artist Ebtisam Abdulaziz draws on the simplicity of Islamic geometric abstraction to create – for the first time – a three-dimensional

work that plays on optical illusion. Elsewhere, fellow Emirati Khalid Al Banna tackles the simplicity and complexity of architectural ornamentation in Islamic art to create spheres within a sphere, conjuring infinite possibilities.

However beautiful, inspirational and incredible the aforementioned nine works are, we are all too aware of the irrevocable damage that acts of terrorism have on our collective heritage, history and identity. Palestinian/Saudi artist Dana Awartani addresses the urgent issue of cultural destruction with a poignant installation that presents, through textiles and dyes made out of natural elements, cultural spaces that have been destroyed by extremist groups since the start of the Arab Spring. She reminds us that to erase one’s historical remnants is to erase one’s very existence.

It is thus an honour for the UAE Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development to remind, register and record Islamic art through this endowment and we are indebted to these artists for so doing.

My thanks also goes to the many individuals – handlers, assistants, studio managers, teachers of Islamic art, and others behind the scenes – who have helped in the production of these fantastic artworks.

At school, my art teacher had asked the class to draw a straight line across the jugular vein of a figurative representation. According to her, only Allah could put life into a being and any human who attempted the creation of a being usurped Allah’s role. I was surprised by this and could not grasp what I felt. In that moment, I asked my mother if that was an accurate representation of Islamic culture. Over the years, she introduced me to the beauty of Islamic art and culture through music, ornamentation, script, architecture, and the traditions that permeate our everyday life. More importantly, I was taught that Islam was not just a faith, but a lifestyle that included peace, beauty, kindness and tolerance.

I saw then – and still see – that Islamic art and culture surrounds us. We can hear it in the sound of the tar (drum) in the mawlid (observance of the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed PBUH); we can see it in the poised brushstrokes of Arabic calligraphy, in the ornamentation and illumination of decorative art and in the geometry of architecture. From Alhambra in Granada to ancient Mesopotamian art, from the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo to Islamic artefacts at the Louvre in Paris, to Mada’in Saleh in Al Ula in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and more, we are reminded of the

timelessness and magnificence of the arts of the Ancient Middle East and the cultures of Islam.

However, these timeless examples, glorious and rich, are from our past. That was then. We look to our contemporary artists today to illuminate and leave behind their own interpretations, all the while continuing to take pride in their identity and heritage.

I am truly delighted with the proposals that the first batch of Al Burda Endowment artists presented. More so, however, is my amazement at the depths and breadths to which these contemporary artists took the principles of Islamic art.

Some have opted for artworks that draw inspiration from historical Islamic sites. Aisha Khalid, for example, has painstakingly embroidered tapestries rendered in a shape that calls the Holy Kaaba to mind. Her first sculptural installation demands viewers to walk around the work to follow the patterns and birds. Meanwhile, Stanley Siu merges the culture of his native China through ink brushes, with an immersive structure that recalls the tomb of one of Persia’s most revered poets, Hafez. Algerian-born Zoulikha Bouabdellah extracted details from the architecture of Alhambra to create a structure that

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FOREWORDhEr ExCEllEnCy nourA Al KAABI

UAE Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development

CELEBRATiNg ThE PAST ThROUgh ThE

PRiSM OF ThE PRESENT

her to see and understand her ‘Andalusian-Arab heritage’. It is often said that the popularity of the interlaced geometric forms was due to the idea that their very order invited contemplation. For Aljoud Lootah as well, the geometric designs that make up screens to create shade and shield from view that appear across the region in varying forms – stone jalis in India, mashrabiyya in Egypt, or mangour in the Hejaz – play remarkably with light and shadow. While Lootah’s sculptures evoke the spirit of that play on light, Ebtisam Abdulaziz explores the full freedom that these geometric forms afford the artist: the interweaving of circle and square and the skilful addition of colour. Stanley Siu and Khalid Al Banna take that geometry in different directions, allowing the viewer to experience the forms directly; with Siu’s work, by actually virtually being within it, and with Al Banna’s, lost inside its intricate ornamentation.

At the heart of the practitioners of the arts of Islam is the importance of tradition and the rigorous learning of skills. It is these that provide the basis from which to innovate and move in different directions. Nasser Al Salem and Dana Awartani both demonstrate this, both having studied in important centres of learning: Awartani at the Prince’s School in London and in Istanbul learning geometry and the painstaking practice of illumination; and Al Salem, sitting daily at the feet of his calligraphy teacher in the Great Mosque of Mecca. Here, he learnt the different styles of script and now creates sculptures and installations linked

to that tradition, while Awartani has turned her skills to the art of the everyday, the practice of dyeing and darning fabrics and the needlework inspired by the forms she studied.

In their work, some of the artists have highlighted the fragility of culture in the face of the complexities of a combative and globalised world. Ammar Al Attar’s evocation of what it is to be a Muslim and to practice the rituals ascribed by one’s faith, for example, is concerned by the loss of practices that people now rarely see and experience and invites the viewer to engage directly with a mawlid ceremony in his native UAE. Lastly, Fatima Uzdenova considers the concept of barzakh known in Islam as a space after death and before Resurrection. In her multimedia installation, Uzdenova places shapes of various materials alongside texts that ask the viewer to contemplate in this transient space.

The works highlighted in the exhibition and in this catalogue are evidence of the enduring nature of the arts associated with the Islamic world, echoing the hadith which enjoins Muslims to seek knowledge even unto China. For, as the faith of Islam spread in the early centuries across the world, so the styles and features of Islamic art travelled with it, ever-changing, evolving and incorporating new elements. These artists breathe new life into those traditions allowing us to think about the glories of the arts of the past through the prism of the present.

Is there such a thing as contemporary Islamic art? This is a question that is often asked. Labels are unnecessary; however, what this exhibition and this catalogue demonstrate, is that far from lying dormant, features that have characterised the arts of the Islamic world since the late seventh century AD – such as calligraphy, vegetal ornament, or geometry – continue to inspire today. What this gathering of works also demonstrates is that it is not only designs and decorative styles that continue to stimulate, but craft traditions and the age-old practices of Islam such as the mawlid (observance of the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed PBUH), or the rituals surrounding the Holy Kaaba at Mecca evoked in such imaginative ways. Most powerfully, these works are successful because of their contemporary relevance.

Islamic art did not appear out of nowhere: vegetal ornament, known in the Arab world as nabati and in the West as arabesque, for example, was present in the arts of Late Antiquity in the Byzantine and Sasanian lands that would become part of the young Muslim empire. The genius of its craftsmen was to continue to

exploit and refine these forms until, by the Mamluk era (1250–1517 CE), these glorious vegetal designs with their curving symmetrical shapes were intricately carved in the wood and ivory panels used to make the minbars (pulpits) in mosques or inlaid in silver on brass vessels made in Cairo, so popular that they were sought after in Venice. Later, under the Ottomans who succeeded the Mamluks in Egypt and Syria, these same motifs, now combined with floral designs inspired from China, covered tiles and garments. Aisha Khalid draws on this decorative heritage for her work, The Garden of Love is Green Without Limit.

As with vegetal ornament, geometry was also a major feature of the arts of Late Antiquity. Artists of the Muslim world worked with mathematicians to create designs that could be repeated in both confined spaces and across vast surfaces, seen brilliantly in the tilework associated with Muslim Spain and that architectural icon, the Alhambra, built by the Nasrid dynasty. It is this extraordinary structure that has inspired Zoulikha Bouabdellah, who describes how, as a child, her mother took her to Granada for

Dr Venetia Porter is

curator of Islamic and

Contemporary art from

the Middle East at the

British Museum. 

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DEFiNiNg ThE iMAgiNARY

discerning art from crafts. Eventually, artists did enjoy a new status, as artistic expression evolved due to new influences from the West. The West defined the region’s art and exerted major influence on artists during the periods of colonisation, modernism, and well into the 20th century. In this new era, artists were no longer categorised by their religion, but as modernists and post-modernists. In so doing, they displayed their affiliation to the West’s artistic movements.

This shift created an important debate over the definition of ‘Islamic art’, and one which, over time, has become increasingly central. Artists and scholars have started to explore the question of artistic practice as they have expanded their fields of inquiry. The convergence of contemporary Islamic art and the arts of other regions has led to a need to define these new phenomena. While notions of isolation, homogeneity and religion are no longer at the forefront, today, regional artists seek to develop a new approach to the visual culture and aesthetics that shape art in the immediate and wider Islamic world. This process has put this generation of artists

in a unique position as they witness the transformations of societies. Additionally, the social and aesthetic impact of their work must be judged from the angles of the political, social and religious restrictions from which they have freed themselves through their work. Somewhat paradoxically, their work reflects the present image of their world, while at the same time being a mirror of an unspoken past. They offer a new definition of Islamic art, one that has been created by reflecting on the art and society of their time, but also on the philosophical, ornamental and intellectual heritage that they have inherited from the artisans of the region.

In a world in motion, their artworks force us to reconsider the narrative of our artistic tradition, not to help the Occident explain the arts of the region, but to understand the constructions that shape and preoccupy us. While harmonious and symmetrical lines have defined our art, over the last decades, new stylistic directions have led us towards a new constellation of thought, as artists parse the numerous complexities of their contemporary identity.

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Dr. Ridha Moumni is an art historian

and curator specialising in

antiquity, early, and modern art. Trained

in France and Italy, he is currently a

fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard

University, where he focuses on 19th and

20th-century Tunisian art and

collecting practices.

The art of the Islamic world cannot be compared to that of other regions of the world. While artistic creation originally developed as an attempt to represent the divine, image-making in the Arab and Muslim world evolved along different routes, all of which have offered structure to its identity. The complexity of Islamic art is reflected in the complexity of defining it both within a temporal frame as well as a geographic one, as it spans several continents and multiple political and cultural contexts. In fact, until the 19th century, ‘Islamic art’ as a term had never been used in the Islamic world itself to define its artistic expression but was rather forged by the West as an attempt to categorise and historicise the artistic creation of the time.

Historically, art was not officially studied in the Arab and Muslim world and therefore rarely designated as ‘art’ or ‘artistic creation’. Despite its

presence in the public sphere and its application in ornamentation, art did not feature as such except when it was used for a religious purpose. We know this because the artists rarely signed their works. Where the narrative of Western art has been enriched by the countless names of artists and art protagonists, the region’s art is defined by artistic movements in which the creators ‘disappeared’; they were perceived as members of a larger community or religious entity.

The concept of the modern artist emerged in Europe during the Renaissance when artistic expression opened up to new fields beyond religious commission. It took several centuries, however, for a comparable phenomenon to take place in the Arab, Persian and Ottoman worlds. While the West celebrated its artists as artists, the Arab and Muslim world recognised the mastery of its craftsmen, and in so doing, highlighted the difficulty of

ARTiST iNTERViEWS

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EBTISAM ABDULAZIZ

AMMAR AL ATTAR

DANA AWARTANI

KHALID AL BANNA

ZOULIKHA BOUABDELLA

AISHA KHALID

ALJOUD LOOTAH

NASSER AL SALEM

STANLEY SIU

FATIMA UZDENOVA

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EBTiSAMABDULAZiZ

Multidisciplinary Emirati artist Ebitsam Abdulaziz (born 1975, Sharjah, UAE) utilises mathematics and systemic structures to explore issues that address identity and culture. She obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Science and Mathematics from the University of Al Ain and took courses at the Emirates Fine Art Society, where she met the late Emirati artist Hassan Sharif. Widely known as the father of conceptual art in the Emirates, he became her mentor. Working in performance, installation, video, collage, painting and drawing, and currently based in Washington DC, Abdulaziz continues to exhibit her work around the world. Among the shows that she has participated in are Arab Express: The Latest From The Arab World at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo in 2012; the inaugural UAE National Pavilion and ADACH Platform at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009; Dubai Next: Faces Of The 21st Century at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany in 2008; and Languages Of The Desert at the Kunst Museum, Bonn, Germany in 2005. Collections where Abdulaziz’s work can be found include the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Deutsche Bank, the Barjeel Art Foundation and the Renault Collection.

one gets the sense that your series based on systems and geometry is an

inherent part of your practice and one that you return to time and again. It is as though I have two brains – on the one hand, I am a creative, sensitive person and on the other, there is this side to me that carries a scientific and mathematical mind. I will always create work that is systematic; it is exercise for my brain and I feel like the concept drives the medium.

why do you go back to systems and what emotions does this incite?It’s a mental challenge. Sure, I enjoy performance and installation, but when I sit down with pen in hand and begin to doodle, I don’t know what will come, and that element of the unknown excites me. I never know. I feel like I am always searching for something new, as though my brain is in a constant state of exploration. The experience is akin to playing a game or a puzzle; it stimulates my brain, more so than if I had a pre-conceived concept to execute. With systems, it is spontaneous creation happening before my eyes.

these geometric works recall the practice of the late [Emirati artist] hassan Sharif.That is true. I always see Hassan in my art. I see his impact in my practice; I was

i hAVE LONg BELiEVED, ThAT ALL OF MY TWO-DiMENSiONAL (OR ‘FLAT’ WORkS) ARE ACTUALLY NOT FLAT. i hAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO CONVERT ThEM iNTO ThREE-DiMENSiONAL FORM.

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one of his disciples, one of his students. These works are very much a part of me, as well as my culture, religion and traditions, and I can’t let go of that.

what do you think he would say about how this series has evolved?I know that these geometric works were somehow close to him in that he related to them. He encouraged me to challenge myself. He always told me that I shouldn’t have to explain the work, that it should be enough for the work to provoke conversation and dialogue on its own. I think he would be proud of what I’m doing now.

what would he think of the work you’ve created for the Al Burda Endowment?I think he would have been impressed and taken note of my departure from the two-dimensional and the direction towards illusion, confusing the viewer by experimenting with depth. This is not a work that is just aesthetically pleasing, it is new, and Hassan liked provocative things.

how did you arrive at the three-dimensional?Like Hassan, I enjoy challenging viewers and want to offer them an alternative

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dimension. I had this idea in early 2019 but was not initially sure how to make it happen. It began with a pencil sketch that I sought to give depth. I like to do things with my hands, and I started on a small scale; some foam board, cardboard and wood. I then added colour – this gave it the illusion of shadow, so you can see that it is not flat. I have long believed that my two-dimensional (or ‘flat’ works) are actually not flat. I have always wanted to convert them into three-dimensional form, and the Al Burda Endowment has given me this opportunity.

what Islamic art principles did you apply here, and how do you feel they manifest?My understanding of Islamic art and how it applies to my work is based on engineering and the principles of organisation and repetition. I don’t see circles in my art much, my shapes are generally sharp, and I think this relates to my personality; I am a straight shooter and my work presents straight lines. The Islamic art that corresponds to my work is geometric, which gives it depth by playing with darkness and light. It also diffuses a sense of synergy and harmony for an overall aesthetic appeal.

People know you as a conceptual artist and looking at your work, some may

find it challenging to see the influence and impact of Islamic practices. People today look at Islamic art differently. So while some may wonder how I went from conceptual art to Islamic art, in truth, Islamic art is conceptual. I’m also extremely happy to realise this project, and so proud that this is an Islamic, contemporary and conceptual work that I created for the Al Burda Endowment. I feel like with this work, I have matured intellectually.

where do you find examples of Islamic art?I see them everywhere. I see examples in architecture and mosques, and of course I grew up in Sharjah and Abu Dhabi and both emirates feature a lot of Islamic influence. My studio in Sharjah was in Bait Al Shamsi and there was Islamic architecture all around me. It is visible even in our homes and is within myself as a person too. There is no one specific space, but several, and I realise that the areas that I gravitate towards are those with Islamic influence in their architecture.

what is Islamic art to you?It is based on minimalism and thought. The Islamic art that I see is how one thinks in a minimalistic manner. That is my takeaway from it: How we can simplify

iSLAMiC ART iS NOT jUST PRETTY FORMS

AND COLOURFUL ShAPES, iT iS highLY

CONCEPTUAL WORk AND iT hAS A SYSTEM

AND iS SUPREMELY MiNiMAL. iT MighT

LOOk EASY, BUT iS iN FACT iNCREDiBLY

COMPLEx AND SOPhiSTiCATED.

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things? Take a triangle for example, it is so simple, yet it can be augmented to become a complex figure through ornamentation, repetition and form. There is serious study and thought in this. Islamic art is not just pretty forms and colourful shapes, it is highly conceptual work and it has a system and is supremely minimal. It might look easy but is in fact incredibly complex and sophisticated.

this can be a principle or metaphor extended onto anything. Absolutely.

what about your chosen colour palette?I think my colours were extracted from nature. That said, I was also in a moment of transformation or transition from one culture to another – moving from the UAE to the USA – so one sees a combination of colours, some of which are identifiable with the Emirates and others which are not. You can translate colours to my mood, or a time in my life, and this was definitely a transformational period. Synchronicity between colours is essential for me. I need them to be easy on the eye and harmonious.

what is this artwork’s mood?Serene. Although the pink is strong and vibrant, it is calm and meditative, just like Islam.

how did you decide on scale?When my work is transformed into a three-dimensional piece, it is better for it to be large, in order for the optics to work. I get excited about new things, new materials and new challenges; this is my first three-dimensional piece of such scale.

how do you want people to feel near it?I have no expectations as such for viewers, I simply want them to be engaged and move around it, as though they were performing around the piece. Whenever the viewer moves, the piece will move with them, so there is a dialogue of sorts. This is entirely based on illusion. I want the viewer to interact with the piece and see it from different angles. This means the viewer’s mind is stimulated.

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AMMAR AL ATTAR

Self-taught photographer and mixed media artist Ammar Al Attar (born 1981, Dubai, UAE) is passionate about the documentation, research and study of Emirati geography and culture (including consumerism) amidst a rapidly changing society. Based in Ajman in the UAE, he holds a Bachelor’s in Business Information Technology from Dubai’s Higher Colleges of Technology and a Master’s degree in International Business from the University of Wollongong in Dubai. He is a member of the Emirates Photography Society and the Emirates Fine Arts Society. Keen on creating a visual history of the world around him, most of Al Attar’s photographs are shot in the UAE. In centring on everyday life, he continues to create a growing visual anthology of his country, focused on its evolving urban landscape. Al Attar has shown his work locally as well as in Bahrain, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece and the USA.

you’ve long been interested in documenting the spiritual. It started with my series Visual Diaries, for which I shot images of daily life. Part of that included the prayer rooms where I

pray and that are not usually in mosques. I decided to chronicle these temporary places and after that, I began the Prayer Rooms series, which focuses on prayer as a ritual. It was more a form of documentation, not in a religious way, but a psychological one – examining the motions that we do without noticing or questioning them. We bow (ruku) before prostrating (sujood), as though the first step prepares you for the next. I wanted to present this in an artwork to trigger questions about rituals, habits and customs.

why prayer rooms? I noticed that there are lots of prayer rooms that are like small temples, and which contain the energy of those who come in, pray and leave. Even the people who built these spaces left their energy there. Each prayer room has the same function, yet they are all designed in different ways for that same purpose. I was also interested in the fact that they are public spaces but, at the same time, private ones too.

what fascinated you most in this process of documentation?

i DO NOT WANT TO FOCUS ON WhAT iS CONFLiCT- BASED, BUT, RAThER, ShARE OUR RiTUALS AND ACTiViTiES, WhiCh ARE MAYBE NOT ShOWN AS MUCh OR CELEBRATED AS ThEY ShOULD BE.

It was interesting to note that in large malls, the prayer rooms were very small and simple, and those in remote places were over-decorated. Prayer Rooms is an ongoing series because there are many more that I have yet to photograph and also, I want to see what they look like in different countries. I travelled to Norway, for example, found a mosque near my

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hotel (which was in fact a house converted into a prayer room) and photographed it. I have also shot prayer rooms in airports as well as multipurpose prayer rooms. I can now see the similarities between them all. In fact, after I exhibited the series, people began sending me pictures of prayer rooms for me to photograph! Some said they now think of my work when they go into prayer rooms.

what did Prayer rooms teach you?It taught me to find things around me, to stop and pay attention to things that we do not notice as much. Sometimes we create projects that we think are small, but actually, they come to affect a lot of people and create an impact. A lot of places I have photographed have now changed or altogether disappeared because of radical change, so that documentation is all the more important.

Concepts of Islam and spirituality permeate your work. what drives you to document them?I am extremely interested in documenting the spiritual and cultural elements around me. In my previous series, I wanted to show the beauty and value of things that are unappreciated; I wanted to understand them more, and also provide a better image of the religion. I had this idea, especially when I shot Prayer Rooms and Sibeel in China and the USA and parts of Europe, that I want to show different aspects of Islam. I do not want to focus on what is conflict-based, but, rather, share our rituals and activities, which are maybe not shown as much or celebrated as they should be. On the other hand, part of the process for me is to understand Islam’s value more, to give it more attention: for me first and also, for others. It is important to note how things are changing – in many of

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my series, objects or places that I have photographed are no longer there. Every project has a societal responsibility to commemorate and cherish.

how did you arrive at creating a work around the mawlid (observance of the birthday of the Prophet mohammed PBuh)?I had seen images of mawlids in National Geographic issues from the 1950s. They often feature special performers and musicians. My father’s uncle used to attend mawlids and years ago I asked him why he no longer went. He told me they were considered a bid’ah (innovation in religious issues) and therefore haram (forbidden). Those who believed so were conservative. This was the 1980s, when things were stricter, and sectarianism was on the rise. The idea of the mawlid never left me, and after attending a wedding in Dubai that included one, my interest was piqued even more, and I wanted to photograph one. It became a form of research. I tracked down the troupe who were performing at that particular mawlid and got to know more people involved and realised that many families still do it,

mainly on Tuesdays and not just for Eid or other celebrations. Some said it was a spiritual outlet; a psychological aperture. There are even areas for ladies to attend. I found that it is still popular, but not many talk about it and some still don’t accept it.

what is so special about the mawlid for you?My love for documentation aside, you feel good after attending a mawlid. You listen to different types of music and see different performances and you don’t need to understand what’s going on because the rhythm guides you. It is not music per se, rather, something that just talks to your ears and emotions. There is something in the movement too that allows you to feel with the performers. You don’t need to understand Arabic, because it is all about feeling, it is a spiritual, rather than a verbal conversation. With tawaf (circumambulation around the Holy Kaaba) and other Islamic rituals, one needs to know what one is doing and why, but with the mawlid, all one has to do is simply experience it. That is what I want viewers of my work to do; I would like them to experience it.

i WANT TO ShOW OUR RiTUALS, CULTURE AND RELigiON. i hOPE SOME PEOPLE ChANgE ThEiR MiNDS ABOUT [ThE MAWLiD] WhEN ThEY ExPERiENCE ThiS AND REALiSE ThAT iT iS ACTUALLY gREAT FOR ONE’S SPiRiT, OPENNESS AND UNDERSTANDiNg OF iSLAM.

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Is it difficult to enjoy it while you are documenting it?I have attended some purely for the sake of enjoyment. I needed to feel the actual event before I photographed it. It is difficult to express how I felt, but I went through different levels of thinking. First, I tried to clear my mind and then when I listened, I tried to emulate the performers’ movements to feel what they were trying to evoke. All of this combined helps one truly experience the mawlid.

In what is a physically and emotionally charged environment, how did you decide what to document?I found myself fascinated by the performers’ hand gestures and, using zoom lenses and then a slow shutter, I focused on their movements. I am more interested in the faces, hands and feelings they reveal when they start reciting – the texture of faces and hands, or of a hand beating on a drum. I wanted to capture the energy and the sound.

why the choice of these media?To begin with, I really wanted something experiential. The camera takes a 360-

view, allowing people to feel as if they are sitting with the performers. Photographs are one thing – they offer more close-ups – but virtual reality is another emotion altogether. Video is great for sound, but photography offers frozen moments that you might otherwise miss in the speed of a video. I also think it is important for artists to use technology to deliver incredible experiences.

what do you hope people will think or feel watching your work?Of course, I want them to experience and understand it more. Some may still be confused about the mawlid; others may not even know what it is. I want to show our rituals, culture and religion. I hope some people change their minds about it when they experience this and realise that it is actually great for one’s spirit, openness and understanding of Islam. Each country has different rituals; Africans for example are more musical and their drums beat in a different way. Ours is based on oral recital because desert countries were famed for their poetry, so there is a focus on the word and not so much on the music.

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DANA AWARTANi

Dana Awartani (born 1987, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) acquired a foundation degree in Art and Design at London’s Byam Shaw, Central Saint Martins and then completed a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in 2009. It was during this time that she developed a keen fascination for traditional Islamic art forms, and went on to pursue a Master’s degree at The Princes’ School of Traditional Arts (also in London) in 2011. There, she received a distinction for her work. Palestinian-born Awartani’s practice is wholly based on traditional practices – materiality and methodology included – albeit through contemporary forms that she has come to explore in different ways. She has worked with metal, wood, textiles and other media to produce installations, sculpture, video, performance, paintings and more. Her commitment to her practice sees her pursue an Ijaza certificate – the highest form of recognition and authorisation to ultimately spread the skill of Islamic illumination. Awartani’s work has been widely collected by private collectors and institutions alike and she has exhibited around the world, including the UAE, USA and UK, Morocco, China, India and Italy.

All of your work is made using natural materials.

In recent years, a theme that popped up a lot was the idea of sustainability and living an ethical lifestyle – we live in a harmful way to the environment and we dispose of things very quickly, so I like the idea of repairing objects and this is also why I use natural pigments, even in my paintings. I then wanted to take it a step further by tapping into the meaning of natural dyes. In the Indian and Arab cultures, we used to use herbs and spices as remedies (still practiced in South Asia), but now rely more on Western traditions. I found the Handloom Weavers Development Society in Kerala and loved the ethos of how they function – they predominantly hire women from poor communities, they don’t use machines, the leftover dye is used as biofuel, spices and herbs are sourced by local people from the local forest and everything is sustainable.

what attracted you to this process?The ethics and historical accuracy. The textile industry is responsible for a lot of global pollution. In my dyes, instead, over 50 medicinal plants were used and I like the idea of healing through nature and through textiles. Today, we only apply preservation to carpets, and not to other fabrics or textiles. In India, for example, expensive textiles like Kashmiri shawls take a year to make. If it gets damaged,

i AM NOT jUST A SAUDi, OR A PALESTiNiAN OR A SYRiAN; i AM ARAB. i CANNOT iDENTiFY WiTh ANY ONE NATiONALiTY. i BELiEVE ThAT ThiS MULTiCULTURAL ASPECT iS MY STRENgTh BECAUSE i CARE ABOUT ThE WhOLE OF ThE MiDDLE EAST AND NOT jUST ONE COUNTRY.

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it would not be thrown out, but rather, repaired and safeguarded because there is a culture of preservation of textiles. The more I spent time in India, and saw how they cared for fabrics, the more I saw how they defied the lingering legacy of the British occupation, which sadly sacrificed the local hand loom industry in favour of industrialisation. I found it a form of resistance and I love that powerful political aspect to it.

Is it ironic that you have applied plants that have healing powers to a concept that is about destruction?I believe that answers can be found in nature and that nature is the best teacher, but I also value the ancient knowledge encapsulated by these textiles and healing cloths. For example, maybe they can help someone grieve and studies have shown that they do help people with physical ailments. Some of the plants in my piece include turmeric, holy basil, aloe vera, henna, jasmine, pomegranate and lotus, all of which have cultural references.

what are some common denominators between this piece and previous ones?

The meditative aspect is really true for all of my work. My practice is inspired by traditional art, which is incredibly laborious; you have to do it over and over again. The illumination that I do, for example, takes months. Though I like to change media a lot, the meditative aspect is always rooted in every piece I do.

how did your interest in textiles develop?It began during my participation in the Kochi Muziris Biennale in 2016, where I first had the opportunity to collaborate with embroiderers from Ahmedabad and have continued since. My interest in ratta that is more commonly known as darning, which I am using in this piece, came about when one of my previous artworks had a tear in it. As I did not know how to repair it, I had to remake it. Now that I have learnt more about preservation and darning, a whole new chapter has opened in my work with textiles.

your previous work focused on spirituality and history. recently, there has been a shift to cultural destruction. how did that happen? I have been interested in it for the last

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few years. While I do not consider this work some sort of grandiose solution to heal the Middle East, it is, however, about how I, as an artist, see our collective history being destroyed. I am not just a Saudi, or a Palestinian or a Syrian; I am Arab. I cannot identify with any one nationality. I believe that this multicultural aspect is my strength because I care about the whole of the Middle East and not just one country. My work addresses themes across the Arab world and focuses on cross-cultural dialogue. India is included because our histories have intersected, especially through trade.

you want to show the pain.Exactly. There is a lot of pain. I want to induce a feeling of sympathy, in that I want people to feel pain, but not in a hostile way – rather, in a poetic manner. I think it is more effective to take the audience by the hand and lead them. Confronting people aggressively is repellent and can only create limitations. I have to find more subtle ways of communicating ideas.

how did you decide on the aesthetics and colours?Seven countries are represented here – Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The countries with

the most cultural destruction (Iraq, Syria and Libya) were divided into two panels each and there are 10 panels of different sizes in total. I used several colours for practical purposes and depth; they are also all found in nature (red, yellow, orange and green). I want people to come close and walk in amongst the textiles so they can smell them and see the detailed embroidery.

how does this correspond geographically?The intention is not to identify the countries by looking at the textiles. I did a lot of research into the destruction of monuments, looking at sites before and after. I distributed it by country, looked at the cities, pinpointed where each monument was (or had been) and put a dot where each was destroyed. I created multiple printouts and had architectural sheets made to abstract the locations. So, while I can point the countries out to myself, I specifically did not want this to look like a map. I feel that that is so overdone. This meant no borders or countries, it had to be abstract. The dots rendered here are in different sizes purely because of the design I wanted, not to denote the gravity of destruction: a destroyed monument is a destroyed monument. The physical scale doesn’t matter.

WE NEED TO RE-EDUCATE,

PRESERVE AND ShiFT ATTiTUDES

ABOUT WhAT iS iMPORTANT iN

OUR CULTURES. OUR PEOPLE FEEL

ThEiR CULTURE iS iNFERiOR iN

COMPARiSON TO ThE WEST.

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Sadly, this is an ongoing piece in the sense that cultural destruction will continue to happen. Yes, the destruction by many different terrorist groups begins with the Arab Spring and carries all the way through to August 2019 in this piece. I am hoping there won’t be more. I hope it is now about rebuilding.

the way to eradicate a civilisation is to destroy its culture. Absolutely. Not only do so many in the West not know about our rich, pluralistic society, many in the Arab world are unaware too. I don’t want to be nostalgic and think of the past, but this is one the darkest times in our history as Arabs. We need to re-educate, preserve and shift attitudes about what is important in our cultures. Our people feel their culture is inferior in comparison to the West.

how do you get people to take pride in their roots?First and foremost: education. When I was at school in Saudi Arabia, there was nothing in the curriculum about Arab history, which means there is almost no way for younger people to engage with our countries’ past. Another very

important aspect is stability: the West prospers because of stability. We don’t have that here because we are focused on survival. Also, one can learn so much from working with craftsmen. Look at calligraphers and illuminators – historically, they were taken in by the royal courts and had patrons support their work. One wonders what will happen to the now-refugee master craftsmen of Syria and Iraq. I feel like today, it’s on us, the younger generation to be involved and I see more taking an active interest in our culture. Hopefully, this will have a ripple effect.

how is this work a departure from your previous pieces?There are a lot of firsts in this work – it marks the first time I use colours in my textiles, the first time I actually embroider myself, and the first time I have not used geometry or floral motifs. It is quite liberating. As a young artist, I am at a stage where I can play with different things and not be limited to any one medium and aesthetic. Conceptually, the work is tied to Islam in that it looks at cultural destruction in the Middle East committed by Islamic fundamentalists, and some of these ruined sites include mosques, shrines, churches as well as pre-Islamic sites.

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khALiD AL BANNA

in a traditional way. I wanted to take this further, to consider the past, preserve it and bring it to the present in a respectful and appreciative way. Above all, I wanted it to remain an artwork and use these existing materials as a base or a departure point from which I can convey the messages that I wanted to transmit. It is important for me to reflect my culture – this is paramount to my practice and thought. I had to address my Emirati identity. When I ripped the fabrics, this was my way of saying we are diluting – shredding even – our identity and traditions.

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iT iS iMPORTANT FOR ME TO REFLECT MY CULTURE – ThiS iS PARAMOUNT TO MY PRACTiCE AND ThOUghT.

Khalid Al Banna (born 1975, Sharjah, UAE) initially dabbled in art by drawing and sketching his family and the UAE landscape, before joining UAE University and graduating in 1998 with a degree in Architectural Engineering – a field that has come to have a lasting impact on his artistic work. He joined the Emirates Fine Art Society in the late 1990s and, fascinated by textures, presented work made with the residue of Turkish coffee. Under the tutorship of Jordanian artist Yassir Dweik, Al Banna began etching, which has become a signature of his practice. Interested in celebrating and preserving Emirati heritage, Al Banna then incorporated collages into his etching work. He later chose to investigate colour, inspired by the bright, patterned fabrics that are emblematic of his childhood and so often associated with Emirati heritage. Al Banna participated in the Sharjah Biennial in 1999, going on to have work included in the first edition of Emirati Expressions organised by the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi in 2009; in Past Forward: Contemporary Art From The Emirates in Washington DC in 2014 as well as group exhibitions in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Kuwait, Germany,

France, Austria and Switzerland. He has staged solo exhibitions at Dubai’s Cuadro Fine Art Gallery in 2014 and 2017. His work can be found in the collections of the UAE Embassy in Washington DC and Montenegro, as well as in the Zayed National Museum, Sharjah Art Museum and the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation.

your practice sees you exercise two strands – working in collages made of paper as well as fabric. how did you arrive at the latter? I treated the textiles as my paints; they formed my palette. The traditional textiles I use come from fashionable garments for women sourced from South Asia. This is largely due to the UAE being a hub for trade, exchange and a place that celebrates diversity. While traditional, these textiles are also highly decorative and include beads, crystals, heavy embroidery and mirrors and so on. I would see the way in which they allowed my grandmother, mother and sisters to express themselves, and this inspired me and sparked my imagination. I felt like each garment held a story, as though they weren’t purely decorative, but rather, artistic. They feel so contemporary, albeit

what was lost? Our country has come a long way since the 1970s and 1980s and has always been a place both of and for change. However, over time, we’ve also lost a lot of beautiful meanings and traditions. I want to remind people of these and show them how seemingly ‘traditional’ things can still be relevant and contemporary.

It’s difficult to classify your artwork for the Al Burda Endowment in the sense that it can be a painting, a sculpture and an installation. It is multiple things and I feel like it can be all of these things at once. In a sense, it is a newborn! Where it differs from previous

works is in form, yes, but also in concept. At its heart, it addresses our withdrawal from Islamic and Emirati culture. The connection between Emirati culture and Islam is profound; it is our identity and the faith has impacted us in a great way. Thus, the circular fabrics I use here cannot be disconnected from the actual base, the frame, just as Islam is our anchor, or base – it permeates every aspect of our lives, whether familial, traditional, urban, architectural and so on. Islam is a culture, an attitude.

how did you conceive the idea for the work?I had experimented with this for some

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time and wanted to extend the same decorative and aesthetic principles that drives my work at large. I felt that I had to continue using these fabrics, as though there was an answer within, or a reasoning of sorts. The floral patterns recall flora in Islamic art while the webbed geometric frame is wholly Islamic. Repetition is another important aspect to this work, as it resonates with the idea of multiplicity inspired by Islamic practices.

there are multiple facets to this work – culture is represented in the fabrics and textiles, the frame is geometric and architectural, and the ornamentation recalls illumination. I am an architect by training, and when we covered Islamic architecture at university, I was so struck by it. I found all those glorious mosques and Islamic architecture incredibly inspiring. The repetition of patterns and the use of flora intrigued me most, because the idea was to avoid using images of anything with a soul (so no animals or humans), which in itself,

being limited to using only them, further augmented the concept of repetition and floral motifs. Even fabrics featured such motifs. The frame is a geometric artwork in itself.

why did you choose a circular shape?I feel like the circle gives me a sense of endlessness because it has no beginning and no end. Like a cell, it grows, and I applied that metaphor when creating the work. The circle is all about freedom and is a departure point; it makes me so comfortable to work with it and the idea of something never ending. I don’t like limits, I don’t operate well with edges, so there are no borders and no angles. Of course, there are aspects of Islamic art as well – the act of circumambulation, the whirling of dervishes and the architecture of domes are all related to the circle and the act of circling.

what was the creative process like?Definitely physically and mentally challenging. I made about five research

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i AM TYiNg hERiTAgE AND iSLAMiC ART TOgEThER hERE, TO REMiND PEOPLE OF WhAT iS BEiNg DiLUTED. i AM POSiNg A qUESTiON, OR RAThER, AN iSSUE – REMEMBER AND RECALL YOUR iDENTiTY.

visits to souks – there’s so much to see and a lot of ideas transpire. The technicality of the work is also laborious, and I began with small round fabric pieces. The intention was for the effect to be that one cannot see the individual pieces of fabric anymore. I wanted them to disappear into the ornamentation and get lost amongst all these colours and textures. There were multiple principles that I wanted to employ, and in retrospect, perhaps one pivotal challenge was giving the materials the justice they deserve, which would ultimately contribute to the entire piece’s message.

the repetition of elements recalls Sufist practices. There is a pleasure in the making process, and it was incredibly soothing. I’ve never done something in this style or scale so of course there was initial anxiety – it looked like something in my mind, but the execution was something else entirely. The work was not complete when the circles

were placed on the frame as I had to then re-examine the colours’ harmony. Working on the floor is one way of seeing, but another entirely when placed on a wall. I came to develop a warm relationship with the piece and very much felt that it was a part of me. Sometimes I still think it isn’t finished; it feels like an open work in the sense that there may be things I could add; it continues to suggest new parameters and new principles to me.

what do you hope audiences will take away from it? I steered clear of the idea that it is purely decorative. This isn’t a ‘design’; it is an artwork. Islamic culture includes ornamentation and that in itself is soothing and diffuses a sense of peace: that is what I want people to walk away with. I am tying heritage and Islamic art together here, to remind people of what is being diluted. I am posing a question, or rather, an issue – remember and recall your identity.

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ZOULikhABOUABDELLAh

Based in Casablanca, Morocco, Zoulikha Bouabdellah (born 1977, Moscow, Russia) was raised in her native Algeria before moving to France in 1993, where she graduated from the École nationale supérieure d’Arts de Cergy-Pontoise in 2002. Her practice spans installation, drawing, video and photography, through which she explores culture, history and industrialisation through themes of identity, globalisation, social issues, sexuality and conflict. Her work has been widely exhibited in biennials, institutions and galleries around the world, including London’s Tate Modern, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, New York’s Brooklyn Museum and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Bouabdellah has also been awarded prestigious prizes such as the Meurice Prize for Contemporary Art (2008) and the Villa Medicis Hors les Murs (2005). Her works can be found in the permanent collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the MUSAC Museum of Contemporary Art in León, the Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation in Vienna as well as the Sindika Dokolo Foundation in Luanda.

Islamic art is such an intrinsic part of your practice. how did that begin?Primarily due to my mother, who is an art historian. Her areas of expertise are the Italian Renaissance, the Napoleonic period and Islamic art. She talked about art every day. I grew up in The National Museum of

Fine Arts of Algiers, because my mother was its director (and the first museum curator in Africa at the time). and had an apartment inside. I saw art from all over the world – Modern Algerian, Dutch and French and other schools. We also travelled quite often to Paris, and I remember being so impressed by the art and architecture there, and my mother would always say that the Arabs did the same and better. She made sure to maintain our interest and I then also came to love Matisse, Delacroix and Umayyad architecture through her. My mother used to take us to visit the museum of traditional arts which is in an Ottoman style house in the district of Kasbah (a UNESCO World Heritage Centre) – that type of architecture really made an impression on me. When I was 14, my mother decided to take my sisters and I to Granada in Spain, and that is probably where my fascination with Islamic art really began.

what did you think of Granada?I was more blown away by Cordoba. I was a teen, totally amazed and imagining the story of the 1001 Nights and Scheherazade. I was proud to know that we come from such a great history. It was a key moment in my life and wholly unforgettable. This was the 1990s, we were living in Algiers and the Islamists were gaining more power, making that period quite difficult. Seeing Granada changed things. The sense of pride was overwhelming.

i AM NOT iNTERESTED iN ThE RELigiOUS ASPECT OF ThE ART; iT iS CALLED iSLAMiC ART BECAUSE iT COMES FROM ThE iSLAMiC PERiOD BUT iT gOES SO MUCh MORE BEYOND ThAT. ThiS iS AN ART FORM ThAT iS UNiVERSAL AND CAN TALk TO ANYONE.

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why did it stay with you?The more I read about Islamic art, the more I found it very modern. There are a lot of modernist concepts in Islamic art. I am no historian, but if I were, this is definitely something that I would write about – the link between Modern and Islamic art, which is not commonly accepted and some even believe it is absurd. However, it is undeniable that Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Henri Matisse found inspiration in the art of the zellige (mosaic tilework) as well as in rugs (known as decorative art) during their trips to Tunisia and Morocco. The history of art does not establish a clear link between Islamic art and abstract art which marked the advent of modernism. Annemarie Schimmel, a specialist in Islamic studies defined arabesque as: “A typical expression of the way Islam feels the world.” The arabesque is no longer just an ornament; this is exemplified in Kandinsky’s use of ornamental art when he moved from figuration to abstraction.

you play with spectators a lot in your work. Of course. This comes from Islamic art too. My inspiration and all my understanding of forms comes from how we make sense of lines – that is the aim of everyone who draws. And, interestingly, there are so many solutions in Islamic art, which is why I say

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ThE MORE i READ ABOUT iSLAMiC

ART, ThE MORE i FOUND iT VERY

MODERN. ThERE ARE A LOT OF

MODERNiST CONCEPTS iN iSLAMiC ART.

that Modern expression is found within it. As for play, I like it because it is a great way to create dialogue. Play allows one to extend a hand and ask the other to put their hand in yours. It makes me sad when people over-dramatise religion. It should be cool. Why make it sad to talk about God and feelings and faith? We have different religions, and that is totally OK, but the focus should be on dialogue. As such, I am not interested in the religious aspect of the art; it is called Islamic art because it comes from the Islamic period, but it goes so much more beyond that. This is an art form that is universal and can talk to anyone. Geometric shapes and lines – anyone can recognise and understand those.

So, what is Islamic art to you?Both a concept and a way of seeing things. For me, Islamic art is not an ideology; which is what I wanted to convey with my Pop Mosques series. The focus is not on what happens inside the mosque, but what we see from the outside: the architecture of different parts of the world. And in looking at them, we realise that the same concept runs throughout. This is about faith and passion, which is how I read the architecture of mosques. I do not see ideology. After September 11, everything about Islam became hazy and it became a problem to say you are Muslim. That is why art is essential: to correct the image.

what keeps your momentum going?I create art because there are too many things to discuss. It comes naturally to me, it is automatic. I focus all my energy on looking at Islamic art and extracting information from there. I also create video art, where I question social issues, women’s issues and love in the Arab world.

how did you arrive at your concept for the Al Burda Endowment?It came from the idea of the colourful zellige (mosaic tilework) in architecture. In a riad (traditional Moroccan house), half the wall is covered in geometric zellige, and the other is white, carved stucco. Between the two spaces there is a line called the charafa, or the frieze, and that is from where my work took inspiration. That line is created to draw the eye and make one look all around the room. This project invites us to discover how this simple Andalusian-Arab motif makes it possible to connect several metaphors in a space through formal illusion. Geometric art allows multiple interpretations and my own here is evident in Acrobats. That break, that line recalls the tightrope used in acrobatics, a really risky exercise where you’re walking on a wire that forces you to physically explore your surroundings and look around you. That is what I want the visitor to think about. When you walk inside a riad in Morocco, to you, the space might be purely decorative, but it is much more than that; the architect put

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you in there and made you an actor inside the structure.

why the aspect of risk?Risk is a way for me to put a finger on the idea that if we don’t take care of our background (Islamic art) then we are going to lose it. This is a risky exercise and we are going to have to be acrobats in the process to continue to take risks. I want to create a situation in this piece by which one has to walk around the work and with every step, be able to see something different. I hope that the viewer will grasp the poetry in Islamic architecture. I hope they are surprised, even amazed, by its simplicity, and the power of drawing a line. The fine lines above the head create a visual journey that invites a contemplative walk.

what led to the choice of colour?This was a way to ‘Pop’ Islamic art. It is a fun colour, something cool that makes things lighter and sunnier. It is pink, it is passion, it is seductive. Be tempted to follow the line. Islamic art is all about passion. In literature, art, even in religion, there is passion.

how can we change minds about Islamic art?By talking about it and by doing what the

Al Burda Endowment seeks to do, which is to show it more and continue to explore it. Islamic art is such a treasure and there is so much in it. When I was a student in Paris, I did a workshop for kids at the Institut du Monde Arabe and the Louvre that focused on Islamic art. I was amazed by how quickly the kids grasped everything. They saw a puzzle in the zellige and saw light in illuminated manuscripts. If you use the right words, they will understand everything. This is not about making kids (or adults) love Islamic art, but about simply showing it to them, to make them aware.

how can we get people to be proud?For a start, it is a question of willingness. Art is positive, and we are responsible for the negative viewpoint of Islam. We need to rectify that and the way to do so is through dialogue. It is important to give another perspective. Islamic art today is widely considered as heritage and something traditional and not modern. We must create more contemporary avenues for it. When Arab art started to gain international momentum over the last 10-15 years, I heard a critic saying that the genre is not contemporary because there is script in it, and that it is too Orientalist because it includes crescents and mosques. We have to write our own story be responsible for it.

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AiShA khALiD

Multimedia artist Aisha Khalid (born 1972, Faisalabad, Pakistan) works across painting, textiles, video, murals and site-specific installation. Schooled in miniature painting, she graduated from Lahore’s National College of Arts in 1997 and received a postgraduate degree in Fine Art from the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in 2002. Belonging to the generation of artists which has propelled traditional miniature painting into the contemporary art arena, Khalid is part of a group recognised as the Pakistani ‘neo miniature’ school. Based in Lahore, she has completed several residencies around the world and has staged solo exhibitions across her native Pakistan as well as in Mumbai, Berlin, Copenhagen, Dubai, Manchester, London and New York. Her work has also been included in international biennials, and can be found

in the Queensland Art Gallery in Australia, the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, M+ in Hong Kong, the World Bank in Washington DC, London’s V&A and India’s Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, among others.

which parts of the process do you enjoy most?The most wonderful part is to actually start. A lot of excitement surrounds the process of looking for the fabric, cutting it, the methods of stitching, and then finalising the pattern. When I see one part complete, I am thrilled, and of course the ultimate thrill is seeing it all together. It is true elation. With proper lighting, the work will look even better. Furthermore, the aspect of beauty in the work is extremely important to me. My attachment to the spiritual is essential and this work is sacred in both its theme and execution. It is also

MY ATTAChMENT TO ThE SPiRiTUAL iS ESSENTiAL AND ThiS WORk iS SACRED iN BOTh iTS ThEME AND ExECUTiON. iT iS ALSO highLY MEDiTATiVE – NOT jUST FOR ME, BUT FOR ASSiSTANTS AS WELL BECAUSE ThE PROCESS OF MAkiNg iT iS VERY REPETiTiVE.

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highly meditative – not just for me, but for assistants as well because the process of making it is very repetitive.

do assistants need to be handpicked when you work on something spiritual?Absolutely, and that is incredibly important for me. It was hard when I initially started with this technique as I was working alone; first in 2010 on a jacket and then, with two Kashmiri shawls a year later for the Sharjah Biennial. I tried to hire students from the National College of Arts in Lahore to help me but they did not quite have the necessary patience: embroidery requires both patience and calmness. Finding people who have both is difficult.

you work across several media. what commonality do they have? I switch easily from one medium to another as ultimately, I see it all as the same activity (and I am also learning classical singing and the sitar). For me, what ties it all together and is of the most importance is the actual process of making. When I paint – or work with textiles, video installations or performance – the process of making something is fundamental. I enjoy the

laborious and lengthy experience of the making of that piece, so the process and its meditative element gives me everything. When I work, I concentrate on a small area; I do not see the entire thing at once, so when I see it all together, it is absolutely amazing, and gives me such a surprise that sometimes I cannot contain myself.

how meditative was the process for your Al Burda Endowment work? One goes into a trance and is transported to another world. The experience is similar to tasbih (using prayer beads as a counting tool to praise God in Islam), which is very repetitive. After you put in the first, the second, then the hundredth and then thousands of pins later, it creates an altogether transcendent feeling, as if one was not even really here anymore. It is a very, very slow, peaceful and calm process. Creating a work like this requires a lot of discipline as one needs to maintain the same pace at all hours of the day while working on its creation. I was listening to Sufi music as I worked, so I feel like I was playing music as I was making the piece. My movements followed the music’s rhythm. It was such powerful music, that at times I had to hold myself back from dancing.

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why did you choose the theme of the garden?Everyone needs a centre or focal point for inspiration, and I took the Holy Kaaba as mine. I started thinking of the green from the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, and I created my structure not to look like an exact cube, but rather, a form of a cube. When I started working on the image itself – the birds flying around the cube – what came to me was the idea of a green garden that is full of life, and celebrates life, and is all about peace, beauty and enlightenment. The verse I used in the work came from Rumi’s poetry. I read the history of the Al Burda poem and the initiative by the UAE Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development and it all fascinated me. This is why the spiritual and meditative concept came out of me quite strongly in this particular work.

why is your centre the holy Kaaba?The Holy Kaaba had been a point of exploration for years and I had the idea of the cube in my mind and wanted to create something sculptural. I kept thinking of green and black too. When I visited the Holy Kaaba for the first time in 2002, I was mesmerised by its beauty, simplicity, minimalism and also the perfection of its shape. It stayed in my mind. I also visited the Prophet’s Mosque and was struck by the use of gold – I think my work with

gold and black tapestry must stem from there. The sensibility and aesthetics are astounding and have made their way into my work.

why the pairing with the paintings?For a start, the piece is not a complete cube as such, as there is space in all four corners, and I am keen on the flow of the fabrics. I wanted a conversation between two media and I also felt that I had more to say through paintings. That is my language and I feel that the two will complement each other in the space. After all, miniature painting has its roots in Islamic history and this genre of painting was in fact used to preserve history. I feel very strongly about the inclusion of the paintings and their classification as a form of Islamic art.

how will they talk to each other?I take my medium as my language. I’ve never done this before, and I felt like there should be paintings with this piece. As a formal aspect, I was feeling so because this time, it’s not a flat tapestry, but a sculptural form. When it’s flat, you look at it like you look at a painting, but here, you have to walk around the tapestries and explore how the birds take flight from one corner to another and all the patterning. With the accompanying paintings, I am hoping viewers will see the same sense of

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movement and that together, it will create an experiential reflection upon time.

what do the birds represent?Birds always fly over the Holy Kaaba and they can be seen while doing tawaf (circumambulation). I have a strong fascination with birds, foliage and gardens. I feel that birds represent fearlessness, independence and limitless possibilities. You will see that I have depicted an odd number of birds on each side. The cube, of course, has four sides: I like how the odd number disrupts that evenness.

how do you think people will feel around this? I think everyone has different experiences. I get surprising feedback with my work. I think what is very obvious is its beauty, and I want people to be mesmerised by the whole thing. I hope the birds will inspire viewers to have a spiritual experience. I want that, actually. Ultimately, people will grasp whatever I put in the work; they always do. In this work especially, there is more than what I normally put in.

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ALjOUDLOOTAh

Initially trained in graphic design, Emirati designer Aljoud Lootah (born 1983, Dubai, UAE) graduated with a Bachelor’s in Applied Media Studies from the Higher Colleges of Technology, Dubai Women’s College in 2008. She found her calling in product design and established her namesake studio in 2015. At the core of her practice is a desire to safeguard tradition, heritage and craftsmanship through modern interpretations. Passionate about patterns, folds and geometric shapes, Lootah utilises multiple media, such as marble, wood, camel hide, textiles and porcelain, to produce furniture, objects, accessories, lighting and tableware, among others. Among the products that she has created are the Misnad and Uwairyan carpets that reinterpret the traditional Sadu weave; and the Tebr collection of porcelain, which draws inspiration from the motifs found at the Sheikh Zayed Palace in Al Ain, UAE. Her studio also creates personalised corporate gifts, bespoke objects and collectible designs for government agencies and private organisations alike and has been involved in retail and residential projects. In 2015, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia acquired two products from Lootah’s origami-inspired Oru collection. A regular

exhibitor at Dubai’s Design Week, Lootah has also shown her work at design events in Beijing, Milan and London.

what were your initial interactions with Islamic art?They were through my father, who is very interested in it. Our home was also designed in a way that features Islamic art and architecture, so we grew up seeing these patterns everywhere.

how did principles of Islamic practices arise in your work? I was working on a project in 2012 with the aim of converting two-dimensional patterns into three-dimensional ones. We had to create an object or piece of furniture in which functionality wasn’t a focus. I found myself orienting towards Islamic art practices and exhibited the Unfolding Unity Stool, inspired by the eight-point star motif: viewers could see the star in the shadows thrown by the stool. I was always interested in geometric patterns and was a graphic designer before I enrolled in this programme; I’m not sure why, I think I like repetition.

that’s very Sufi.I think so, and it is interesting to me how

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this developed from graphic to product design. A few years ago, I extracted motifs from a striking, pattern-filled door found at the Al Ain palace of the late ruler of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, and made them into porcelain tableware pieces. Islamic geometry is all around us, yet we have become unaware of it; people have gotten so used to seeing it that now they don’t really ‘see’ it anymore. What I do is bring it back in a modern way.

where do you see Islamic art in the uAE?It surrounds us. It is everywhere and it is not always geometric, but sometimes organic. I often get asked why I create objects inspired by my roots, but I think it is important to tell stories through our designs and this is the reason I keep going back to Islamic art and Emirati-inspired design.

what fascinated you the most about Islamic geometry?Besides the repetition, just how complex it is, yet when you break it down, how simple. When you look at an Islamic design as a whole unit, one might think it is extremely complex, but it is actually comprised of one shape that is rotated and repeated.

do you think in shapes?I do, as I am a very visual person. Most of my works are geometric and I prefer edges to circular shapes. There’s always a hexagon or a square somewhere.

how did you arrive at the concept behind Falak?I wanted to create something based on the repetition of a hexagonal shape and had already thought of the notion of rotation around the unit itself. In the Holy Quran, there is a verse in Surah Al Anbiya: “And it is He who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon; all [heavenly bodies] in an orbit are swimming.” I wanted to create something that orbits and revolves around in a constellation. Islamic geometry utilises rotation and repetition in a multitude of ways. When you start working with patterns, you always begin with a square, which is then rotated, added or multiplied. The circle, too, is always present within the pattern, whether visible or hidden, but it is the square that creates the lines.

do you start with a sketch?I always do. I enjoy that the most. I take pleasure in trying to come up with an idea and concept and seeing how it progresses.

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what is it about stars and constellations that inspires you?To this day, my father will say that so and so star has appeared, which means that the weather is getting cooler or some other seasonal observation. Relying on stars is common in our region and our ancestors used them to guide them on their journeys. Stars played a big role in their lives and I find that so interesting. My maternal grandmother would talk about how they used stars to travel to and from Mecca on camels over several months. Grandparents are great storytellers, and to preserve and pass on those stories we need to translate them in our own way. We must keep the stories going.

you feel a sense of responsibility.Very much so, because these stories define us as people and humans, and Emiratis. They shape who we are. We have to remind others that there is more than the physical aesthetic, that there is a story behind it. I am attached to my roots, to my history, to Emirati crafts and artisanal

work, and I believe that they should be preserved. Traditions need to be safeguarded at a time when everything is rapidly changing. I am not against change, but we need to remind ourselves of our roots and not forget where we originate from and who we are.

Falak is a barrier. Somehow, yes. The way it is divided and designed with multiple openings through overlapping hexagons creates the option for some privacy, but still offers a glimpse of what is happening on the other side. In that sense, it has a personality. I was very focused on making something modular that could adapt to the environment that it will be placed in. With different configurations, one can make it personal.

why were you keen on the modular aspect?To be modular is very much part of Islamic art – the possibility of adding or subtracting patterns allows one to make a design either more complex or simple.

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I want viewers to interact with the piece and try multiple configurations. The entire piece is modular and the units can be clicked to others.

why camel leather?In principle, I don’t like synthetic materials. The units in the piece are made of camel leather, a material that is relevant to our region. There is also only one source for camel leather in the UAE and it ensures that the camel was not only used for meat purposes, but in its entirety.

what is the process of creation like?We create a prototype with cardboard and once we have that set, we measure the holes through which the rods go through. When it looks and functions as it should, we move on to creating a pre-final prototype with scrap leather and cardboard. It is not enough to just look good, it needs to be functional, and I really enjoy using my hands. It is an experience that excites and amazes me because it is real, physical creation

and that provides a tremendous feeling of satisfaction.

what do you want and hope for viewers to feel around Falak?I want them to be involved in configuring it in a way that would make them feel as though they were adding to the piece itself. I want them to touch it as well. There are a lot of art and design pieces that say ‘do not touch’ or ‘feel only with the eyes’; with Falak, I want this to be a personal experience, that the process of creating Islamic patterns is part of the viewer’s story too. If a work doesn’t stir something, it will not resonate and I really want viewers to feel what Islamic art is. Something living, to which you can add, make it different and make it personal. Make it yours.

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NASSERAL SALEM

Based in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, Nasser Al-Salem (born 1984, Mecca, Saudi Arabia) was exposed to calligraphy at a young age and was tutored at the Great Mosque of Mecca, where he received the prestigious Ijaza certificate – the supreme form of acknowledgement and authorization within the realm of calligraphy. Following an undergraduate degree in architecture from Um Al Kora University in Mecca, Al Salem participated in several group exhibitions within the Kingdom and was then picked up by Jeddah’s Athr Gallery. A co-founder of Al Hangar, an artist collective based in Jeddah, he is also a member of the National Guild of Calligraphers and a fellow of the Kingdom’s Arts and Culture Group. Al Salem’s practice sees him push the parameters of traditional Islamic calligraphy by redefining contexts and notions through highly conceptual executions rendered in various media. In 2013, he was shortlisted for the Jameel Prize at the V&A and more recently, in 2019, staged a major exhibition at the Delfina Foundation – his first solo show in the UK. His work has been shown in the Gulf, Europe and the USA and can be found in the permanent collections of the British Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

your installation for the Al Burda Endowment demands the viewer circle around it in the space. Absolutely, the viewer must move around within it. There is a sense of infinity to the space yet no tangible sense of scale, which makes it actually feel larger than it really is.

the act of circling, or circumambulation is significant in Islam. Yes, that is true. With this installation, even if visitors walk all around the work, they will never be able to see it in its entirety. I wanted it this way because of the specific hadith I used in the work when the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) describes Paradise: “I have prepared for my righteous servants what no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no danger to the human heart.” My work insinuates exactly that: that you can’t see Paradise in one glance, and it is never-ending.

would you describe this as a room of possibilities and imagination?Yes and no. It is a room of fantasies about Paradise, a place on its own that offers multiple interpretations. The room’s principal function is to represent the hadith.

what about viewers who don’t speak Arabic?I think the impression of being within an

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infinity room conveys a sense of bliss or nirvana that crosses language barriers. The floor lighting as well implies the infinite; it is there to make you feel like you’re in another world, one with no limits.

why did you choose green for the interior?I used the chroma room because this room on television is the space that (metaphorically) presents the impossible, the fantastical and the incredible, and is used as the backdrop for adding in special effects. The idea behind the inclusion of the text is to reflect that everyone has their own interpretation of Paradise. Also, there is a great deal of reference to green in Islam and, in the evocation of a lush Paradise, it is related to Eden.

one can’t help but consider this space as one of momentary reflection. I see that that is a possibility; perhaps the sense of security that this room gives off can make it feel like a cleanse of sorts. I think it is inevitable for people to question themselves and indisputably, there will be an impact. Ideally, I’d like the viewer to take in this eternal space and take the time to imagine Paradise. I have no doubt that iit will make one reflect upon things.

will your work appeal to those who are not religious?This is still a space of imagination and will allow people to imagine that there are spaces that are bigger than one’s imagination. It might change perspectives. I believe that the lack of physical borders alone will provoke thought.

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how did the idea come to you?I came across the hadith in 2015–2016 and wrote it on white paper in white ink. I felt I could illustrate it further and do it more justice. I didn’t want the viewer to be able to take it in, quickly, in one glance, even in a drawing. I felt that it had no impact in that rendering. That’s when the idea of creating a room came to me. I researched artists who have used rooms and light – how do you create a space but charge it with feeling and emotion? I also thought about colours. Light is an essential component, and along with the lighting engineers, we went through several iterations before we achieved the right lighting. I wanted to create the effect that the room is naturally glowing, so one doesn’t know where the light is coming from. This all adds to the notion of infinite spaces and possibilities. I wanted to convey the essence of the quote and its evocation of infinity in a way that transcended linguistic and religious borders.

to glow is spiritual, like a halo or divine light. To be honest, I was more focused on creating a space for imagination and one that is otherworldly. The hadith itself tells us that humans cannot possibly imagine Paradise, that it trumps whatever one could imagine, tenfold or a hundredfold or more. However much we have achieved

as mankind, we still cannot truly imagine Paradise. What is wonderful about this hadith is that it simultaneously tells us we cannot imagine Paradise, yet also manages to convey its majesty, its infinity and its endlessness. It does tease, but it demands that you think about it: that however great your imagination is, it is limited.

how can conceptual art be Islamic?Because it depends on philosophy and is highly reliant on thought and minimalism. Ornamentation and calligraphy are visual representations, but the principles behind both of them are highly conceptual and philosophical, and certainly not happenstance. It is all about engineering and thought and is an entirely studied process.

Is your work is becoming more conceptual?It began in 2009 when I wanted to pursue that direction with script. I wanted to take script out of the parameters of calligraphy and then realised that calligraphy within Islamic art is based on conceptual principles. I felt I could investigate this further, and be able to create installations. I felt script could say more in different media; it could justify video, sculpture, installation and so on, more than it being limited to a paper or canvas. If I didn’t go

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further, I wouldn’t have felt that I would progress, and script would remain in its classical form or level and not move forward. My installation for the Al Burda Endowment does just this – although I started on paper, it didn’t do the hadith or the script justice at all. I did not feel I had been able to bring the true emotion out from an intellectual point of view.

what was the most difficult aspect in this process? Definitely how to make this physical space imbue within the viewer a feeling that it is infinite.

that’s quite a mechanism of engineering. When a work can achieve this feeling of endlessness, then viewers can really grasp its significance – and in this case, question the true meaning behind the hadith itself. So much technology surrounds us today, it makes us think that every aspect in our lives will be touched by it and that everything will be radically different. The speed with which this is happening makes people imagine how it will all change – precisely what this hadith states: what no eye has seen!

they say that change is the only constant – is there a parallel between an unimaginable Paradise and an unimaginable future?I think in current times in our lives, it is as though we are waiting for something. When are we going to start living in the actual moment and not thinking about tomorrow? This idea of impending change is ever-present, and we are constantly questioning and wondering. We have so much information and so much data, but we still can’t imagine tomorrow. Also, our region is changing, and we have no idea what more change is coming but we know that change is a constant, it is always present.

how did you select the actual calligraphic script for the hadith?I chose a type of Kufic script – historically, it is the first clear Arabic script and became the official style used for all publications. More than 120 scripts came afterwards. I like the Kufic script because it captures the spirit of the original calligraphers and there are minute details in there. Looking at a such features will force you to consider the smallest of things in metaphoric comparison to the largest.

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STANLEYSiU

A graduate of the Unitec Institute of Technology in Auckland, Stanley Siu (born 1979, Hong Kong) has a dual practice focusing on both architecture and art. In 2013, he established Daydreamers Design, a firm that works on projects around architecture, interior design, curation, exhibition, installation and art, both within Hong Kong and internationally. At its core, the firm offers design solutions through research, curatorship, artist and designer collaboration, as well as community engagement. Siu has worked on design projects in Australia, China, Italy, Macau, Malaysia, Taiwan, the UAE and USA. Highlights include a collaboration with Swire Properties for the Art Basel Hong Kong Lounge (2018) and the V&A in London (2017-2018) as well as a commission for the Hong Kong Museum of Art (2017), among others. In 2016, he was appointed Chief Curator of Stratagems In Architecture, Hong Kong In Venice at the 15th Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition. In the same year, he was also the first Hong Kong architect invited by

the Government of Sharjah, UAE to participate in its annual Islamic Arts Festival. Siu is also an Assistant Professor at Chu Hai College of Higher Education in Hong Kong.

how did your interest in Islamic art develop?Initially, it was a mystery – perhaps because the region itself is mysterious to me. Originally, I had a very basic, general understanding of Islamic art that was part of mainstream education. I thought that the geometry was simple, but after being exposed to it, I realised that in fact, it is quite complex, and I now appreciate it so much more. The first time I felt engaged with Islamic architecture was in 2016 upon an invitation from the government of Sharjah to produce an artwork inspired by Islamic practices for the Islamic Arts Festival. It was from there onwards that my interest was piqued, and my in-depth research began. Once I began to understand Islamic art, I became fascinated and wondered how one can miss out on a part of the world and a genre that has such a strong artistic

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history. I was really astounded that I had not read enough about it before. From an architectural standpoint, Islam has been a big influence throughout history.

what struck you the most about Islamic art and architecture? It opened up another perspective for me. I felt like I had been struck by lightning. I saw that the art was divided into the categories of calligraphy and geometry and though I couldn’t read the script, I could feel it. The part that I focused on was architecture and geometry and I felt like I was trapped in a maze with the geometry. How it starts with a shape and evolves into a pattern really inspired me. If I had to name one aspect as the very essence of the architecture of Islam, mosques would be it for me. I find them to be at the centre of the culture, though they are complicated in terms of layout and design. For me, the mosque is a threshold and gateway from the outside world: once you are inside, everything becomes sacred and calm.

It is amazing how science, geometry and aesthetics can produce something so aesthetically beautiful. Indeed, and also of importance, in that it is not accidental. The practice is entirely

studied. It is wholly precise and made with a lot of consideration. Without that understanding, one would think it is random. I have tremendous respect for it.

what do you feel Islamic art has taught you?Though I felt I was late in exploring Islamic art, the first Sharjah commission in 2016 inspired me to visit libraries and wade through endless material. I felt I needed to explore more. Good ideas won’t come to you, you need to go after them. In 2018, I took part in the Hong Kong Pulse Light Festival in Tamar Park organised by the Hong Kong Tourism Board and decided to create an artwork focused on the theme of love. I chose love because there are so many different types of love, and love as a universal notion applies to mankind as well as the animal kingdom. I wanted to cross-reference cultures, so I used stained glass, which people normally associate with Christianity, and placed them on a sphere on which I applied Islamic geometric patterns. When the light shines from the inside, a lot of shapes appear. That was my first attempt at combining the two cultures.

you take the same premise of combining cultures for your piece for

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the Al Burda Endowment. how did the idea of Conversion come to you?The way that I begin to produce work is to accumulate a quantity of small objects to create a form and this is something I very much enjoy doing. Audience engagement is also something I am keen on. With Conversion, the idea began with the tools used in calligraphy, one of which is the ink brush and that is how I began my experiment: I used a tool that both Chinese and Islamic calligraphers share. I wanted to use an element that is common to both cultures.

why is it important to merge the cultures in your work? It is something I like doing and do naturally. I subscribe to the theory of the artist transforming the object into an artwork. The ink brush is used to draw, but here, it is used to recreate Islamic art.

how did you arrive at the shape, pattern and colours?The colours came from the palette of a traditional Chinese ink painting, a colour scheme used about a century ago and still applied today. I used that to extract the colours and then applied geometry to assess what combination works best. We created several drawings with four, five and six-point stars; I’ve never experimented with this much geometry before! We stopped when we felt that this was the best combination. It is hard to describe, because half of my mind is in the architecture and the other is in the design, but the final composition did both: remind me of how the traditional Chinese ink drawings look and recall the patterning and geometry in Islamic art.

what was the intention and inspiration behind the actual structure?As an architect one doesn’t just create

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a building, that building interacts with the public space. I always try to create an artwork that can stand alone in a public, free space, and not be constrained by walls. I want to create something that can be placed anywhere and that people can integrate with. I saw this as an opportunity to see from above; we always look at an artwork facing it straight on, but here there is a chance to look at an artwork from below, as if gazing at a dome from underneath.

what do you hope for people to take away from such an experience?They will begin by seeing the form and colours and there will be an invitation to enter. They will look up – that very gesture, that act is like a prayer, like making a wish, and that is shared in cultures all over. Looking up is like showing respect, and then you see the geometry that is made up of thousands of ink brushes, a pixilation of sorts. If an artwork catches your eye, you will want to come back, take a picture of it and think about it. I hope they do so and want to know more to eventually discover that actually, a Chinese artist fascinated by Islamic art sought to create an experience through an artwork that bridges cultures.

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FATiMA UZDENOVA

Based between the UK, UAE and the North Caucasus, where she originates from, Fatima Uzdenova (born 1978, Karachay-Cherkess Republic, USSR) graduated with a Master’s degree in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art in the UK in 2019. Prior to this, she completed a fellowship at the Sheikha Salama Bint Hamdan Emerging Artist Fellowship in Abu Dhabi, an initiative created in collaboration with the Rhode Island School of Design in the USA. Uzdenova also pursued studies in fashion and worked as a designer and cultural producer in the UAE. Her practice is anchored in the concept of the garden as a place of conquest, a spiritual terrain and as a source of nourishment(s). Working across a range of media including sculpture, writing and performance, she is currently researching colonial botany and the ‘fictive’ as a methodology to explore legacy of colonisation, geo-political histories and Russian Orientalism. Uzdenova has exhibited her work in the USA, England, Scotland and the UAE.

what are some key takeaways from your time at the royal College of Art that you feel you can adapt to the Endowment?We were a group of 55 students so diverse

in our practices, and one of the biggest takeaways was that anything can be a sculpture: text, textiles, video or even creating an experience. This is a palate cleanse and a radical, liberating way of looking at things when you think of sculpture.

you are creating an experience for the Al Burda Endowment. I realised how important it is for me to engage with the audience and forgo the white cube setting where works hang or stand. I tend to put things on the floor to see how people react to them. During my degree show, I asked people if they wanted to touch my work and they did. That creates another level of engagement, and people want to stay longer; they want to learn more and take notes. That interaction with the work is valuable to me.

we know barzakh to be a place after death and before resurrection between hell and heaven where the soul remains after death until the day of Judgement. how did the idea of barzakh begin in the context of your work?I lost someone very close to me, and that shakes you to the core and makes you question a lot of things, including

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your spirituality and what role religion plays in your life. I started to wonder what happens after death and what our connection is to other realms. Research led me to barzakh. It was so great to find a word to describe this space. I found it fascinating, this in-betweenness, and I ruminated upon it and it gave me peace. I started thinking of it more as a concept beyond its religious context. A hotel is like barzakh, so are airports and humans; even physically we are always in between, everything is transient. We can apply the concept to so many things – clothes, geography, age etc. Barzakh

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is still religious but it’s now attached to an artistic and philosophical view.

how did you come to give form to barzakh?It happened in the best way these things happen: I was trying to do something else, (a ceramics technique) missed a step and found this form. It looked amazing. It was in Abu Dhabi during my time at the Salama Bint Hamdan Emerging Artist Fellowship, at a exercise called Iterative Exhaustive Studies, which involves taking an idea and parsing it through until all possibilities are exhausted. Incidentally, I was working on a painting related to death and eternity!

how did you know that this shape looked like barzakh or could represent it?In the first couple of seconds when I was playing with it, and then moulded it together, I felt it looked like stillness; a deep slumber, a dream-like state with no real defined shape.

that experience must have stayed with you. I felt great, because something I was thinking of manifested itself in a piece of art. It is one thing to have something in

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your head and another for it to physically appear. It was a very emotional moment when all these nebulous pieces became core elements of my practice.

what do you want audiences to feel through this project? I am frustrated, like a lot of us are, about something we don’t talk about enough: how fast contemporary life is, and how much of a focus there is on superficial issues like youth and how your life looks (on the surface). It feels like no one wants to – or likes to – talk about big things like illness or death. I wanted to offer a gentle nudge to encourage viewers to meditate upon such topics. I’m not telling people what they should think or feel, but I want to create a space that will give one pause to think, meditate and contemplate life, values or remembering someone. The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) encouraged people to think about death, because it colours your life and how you live it. It is a sobering thought.

how is your work inspired by Islam?Islam is a big part of my DNA. I come from the North Caucasus, my people are Karachay, and the majority are Muslim. I always get: “Oh you’re from Russia, I didn’t know there were Muslims there.” I come

from a place that is shrouded in mystery and relatively unknown. People do not know the Karachay and this has always been part of my being. It was still the USSR when I was growing up in the 1990s and there was a religious renaissance of sorts. My paternal grandparents were religious in the most beautiful way; they were spiritual human beings and a lot of it came from Islam and that is how I viewed Islam.

what made your paternal grandparents’ spirituality so special? They were really, really kind and kindness is something that we can all use more of and don’t experience enough because of how life can become so capitalist. The Western model is adopted and there isn’t a lot of space for kindness there. Despite having an incredibly tough life during the Russian Empire, the USSR and a World War, my grandparents were so gentle, so devoted to each other and their family; the love they gave was so beautiful. I know it definitely stemmed from Islam and from the adat (customs) as we call it. That kind of Islam has always been at the back of my mind. Unfortunately, there is disdain today in religion, which I find unsettling. People think that if you’re religious, you can’t think independently and critically,

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which is something I don’t agree with at all. Look at artists like Mark Rothko, Vassily Kandinsky, Monir Farmanfarmaian and Saloua Raouda Choucair – their practices fused art and spirituality.

you are creating a place that merges art and spirituality. It’s such an important tool or portal to so many things, to take the time to pause and contemplate, and to be changed and moved. That is one of the most important aspects of art.

how will the ‘nebulous pieces’ of your work augment the experience of the viewer?I want some pieces to be available for viewers to interact with; if you want to lay down, use it as a pillow or cradle it.

136The first time I tested a performance with the pieces, I went into a sort of trance and fell asleep. I hope to evoke a visceral, emotional reaction that puts one in a contemplative mood. Along with texts, a space and these pieces available for interaction, I hope it will really do something to – and for – the viewers.

why are the pieces available in multiple media?Material engagement is something that I continue to interact with and experiment in. I want to aim for different levels of opacity because this relates to the opacity and density of the concept. When you have a tactile experience, it will be different if it’s heavy or if you can’t see through it. It will relate to a spectrum of feelings and how you think about your body or about being transient.

we know barzakh as a place where one gets a glimpse of the afterlife. Could some people might have a bad experience?What’s wrong with a bad experience? Art is beyond aesthetics and happiness. The most powerful art is art that shakes you and makes you want to question your reaction. This is a chance for introspection, and I want to make the experience more neutral, not dark.

ACkNOWLEDgEMENTS The Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development, United Arab Emirates extends its thanks to the following individuals for their support of this publication – Shamsa Al Abrawi, Danah Meshal Abusido, Abdelmonem Alserkal, Fiza Akram, Afra Ali Almutairi, Queena Apanna, Farah Arke, Madeline Baldedara, Marie-Claire Bakker, Sam Bardaouil, Kezia Castillo, Tidus Chung, Andrea Urrea Dattoli, Robin Eckstein, Leila Evangelista, Michelle Farrell, Alia Fattouh, Till Fellrath, Hanan Al Garni, Lubna Al Gergawi, Hammad Gillani, Tamara Habach, Uwe Höhne, Mohammed Hafiz, Alanood Al Hammadi, Roaa Hussein, Aamna Iqbal, Summer Islam, Vilma Jurkute, Gloria Lau, Sascha Machiedo, Farah Jdid Mahmoud, Brunhilde Maritz, Georges Massoud, Nadine Mazraani, Reshma Mehra, Salem Mohammed, Maria Mumtaz, Maira Nabawy, HE Mubarak Al Nakhi, Dyala Nusseibeh, Marivie Pascua, Alia Khalid Al Qassimi, HE Salem Al Qassimi, Omar Qirem, Dr Abdallah Rothman, Afia Bin Taleb, Maitha Al Suwaidi, Nishita Virkar, Walter Willems.