Oasis Magazine (issue 5) by MDC

Brush your teeth Save the world Advertise with Oasis Magazine

Advertisement inquiries at Oasis Magazine: email to info@oasis-mag.com, fax to 966 1 4605632, or post to Oasis Magazine, P.O.Box 50683, Riyadh 11533, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. www.oasis-mag.com

Our Team

Publisher

Oasis Publishing House Ltd (UK)

Founder & Editor-in-Chief Munira Munir Al-Ajlani

Creative Director Noura Bouzo

Editor-at-Large Basma Bouzo

Editor and Writer Ahmad Dialdin

Business Development Sara Bouzo

Advertising Coordinator Link & Marketing Sara Al-Tuwaijri Sulafa Sami Kurdi Rawan Yaqub

advertise@oasis-mag.com

Regular Contributors Sara Al-Tuwaijri Reem Bouzo Samia Kanaan Rania Khalilieh Dr. Geoffrey King Sara Saab

Acknowledgements

Ahmed Aljelwah, Leen Badr, Nada Baeshen, Tahira Fitzwilliam Hall, Ghazal Kurdi, Sulafa Sami Kurdi, Aya Mousawi, Raheel Mohammed, Stephen Stapleton.

Oasis Publishing House Ltd (UK) Sloane Avenue, SW3 3EN, London, UK Tel: 44 0 207 2250244

Oasis Publishing House Ltd (KSA Office) Link & Marketing Riyadh 11533, P.O.Box 50683, KSA Tel: 4646607, Fax: 4605632 Email: info@oasis-mag.com Website: www.oasis-mag.com

Distributor

Al Watania Distribution P.O.Box 84540, Riyadh 11671, KSA Tel: 966 1 4871460 Printing Inc. Printers S.A.L. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Karantina P.O.Box 175750, Beirut, Lebanon Tel: 961 1 577770 Copyright Oasis Magazine is published quarterly. All rights reserved. All material published in Oasis Magazine may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the knowledge and permission of its publishers and founder. Oasis Magazine has ensured that all material included in the magazine is accurate, and will not be responsible for any error in submission from its contributors. All views expressed may not necessarily reflect the views of Oasis Magazine. All rights reserved. Oasis Magazine ÂŠ

Contributors f

Farida Al Husseini: Farida Al Husseini is a Saudi humanist and alternative-thinker. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 2007 with a degree in Social Anthropology and Middle-Eastern Studies. This influenced her to become an advocate for change and a dedicated fan of all forms of cultural and artistic expression. Farida has been known to spend hours happily analysing images and texts. She is particularly fond of anime.

Henry Hemming: Henry Hemming is a writer and artist based in London. His first book, Misadventure in the Middle East, recently shortlisted for the Dolman Book Prize, was an account of his year-long journey through the Middle East making art and putting on exhibitions. His second book, In Search of the English Eccentric, published by John Murray, came out in June 2008. For more, please visit www.henryhemming.co.uk.

Mohammed Al Saadoun: Mohammed is currently a student at Al Yamama College. He is very social, down to earth (not just because of gravity), and ambitious. He travels a lot, and loves Europe. Some of his hobbies are playing the piano and djing. He is part of a triplet, but they are all unidentical. Last, he is a musi-holic. For his team members (in Ash it Ashtrays, see page 76) he wanted to send this message: â&#x20AC;&#x153;I would like to give a special thanks to my team!! whom without none of this would have been possible HB, SS, Sultan, Abz, Lil Moe you know who you are!â&#x20AC;?

Pol O’Geibheannaigh: Pól Ó Géibheannaigh from Ire-

land (the Ó is part of his surname) is a practising mixed media artist (drawing, painting, video and photography) for 16 years extensively in the U.K and Ireland. The most recent exhibition being “An Image of Nagaland” documenting the rituals of the hill tribes of N.E India. Pól has lived in Lebanon and travelled extensively over the last 9 years in the Middle east and Caucasus and has organised conferences in the U.K and Ireland to foster a better understanding of the Middle East region.

Rashed Islam:

Rashed lives in Jeddah, and has a love of food, photography, travel and design. The combination of which led to his most recent startup ‘Jeddah Food.com’ an Online Restaurant Guide to the city of Jeddah and Saudi Arabia. When not out tasting the finer cuisines Jeddah has to offer, Rashed can occasionally be found scuba diving somewhere along the coast of Obhur. He holds a degree in Industrial Design & Technology from Brunel, and an MBA from Southampton University.

Contents 13 Editor’s Note 14 Celebrating One Year of Oasis: looking back at a great year arts & culture what’s happening in our region

16 Edge of Arabia: Interviews with 17 contemporary Saudi

artists who will be exhibiting their work in London from October till December 2008

in focus focused on Saudi Arabia 56 King Faisal Foundation

our guide to a happening Saudi 64 Souks: Jeddah’s Mahat and Newbury Boutiques 66 Foodie: A Date with a Cake 70 Art Scene: Jeddah Urban Artists 76 Art Scene | Young Environmentals: Ash it Ashtrays 78 Till Next Time | Events: Global Competitveness Forum 2009

quenches the mind OASIS MAGAZINE

cover review

“Saudi Bling”: The cover artwork celebrates the achievements of Saudis with its Saudi Riyal bling.

Contents healthy mind worldwide topics to enlighten

your mind

80 Pink: Breast Cancer Awareness Month 86 Peace One Day

travel

everybody needs a break every now and then... make it worthwhile

88 Istanbul: the European City of Culture 2010

edgy gadgets and sweets that make us smile 102 On the Edge

106 Products We Love: Gizmos & Gadgets 116 Sweettooth: Money Grows on Trees

122 One Last Thing

, Editor’s note In this issue, we celebrate the achievements of our community. In art, we take a closer look at today’s contemporary Saudi Artists. Seventeen of the most accomplished Saudi artists exhibit their work in ‘Edge of Arabia’, an exhibition in London that will run from October till December 2008. We also look at the online urban artists of Jeddah and see how they have used the web to accomplish remarkable steps in spreading the word about art in the Kingdom and bringing artists of the Kingdom together. Since its establishment in 1976, the King Faisal Foundation has worked diligently to celebrate achievements whether it is in academics, Islamic culture, or goodwill. We celebrate the foundation for living up to King Faisal’s legacy. From our incredible kingdom we move on to see what the world is celebrating this year: World Peace Day, Istanbul as the City of Culture in 2010, and so much more. One of the great articles we cover this time around, is the story of young men who with a clear vision managed to climb Mount Everest. With their achievements, they were able to spread the word on important issues and share with future generations that nothing is impossible and dreams do come true. We’d like to say we know the feeling of standing on the highest peak of the world but for now, we will just bask in the glory of celebrating with you the accomplishments that make us feel that we are already standing tall on Everest. Eid Mubarak,

Munira Al-Ajlani

OASIS MAGAZINE

“Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It’s a miracle, and the dance… is the celebration of that miracle.” Martha Washington

quenches the mind

With this issue, Oasis celebrates its first year. Our one Year anniversary! And we are extremely excited to share it with you, at a time of celebration - Eid Al-Fitr. With this issue, we examine the notion of celebration. While most of us spent a couple of good hours grinding our teeth and watching the stock market, it’s sometimes better just to relax and celebrate the little things in life.

Celebrating One Year of Oasis Magazine In case you didn’t notice, IT’S OUR BIRTHDAY! Here are a few words about how we started and where we’re headed (our speech):

quenches the mind

Oasis started as a celebration of Saudi culture. Each issue is aimed at exposing a rich cultural heritage and a modern, progressive and young Saudi that is coming up with new ideas and excelling at them.

OASIS MAGAZINE

Oasis has always seen itself as a link between Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world. Articles about the newest happenings in the West and the rest of the world, aim to inspire our youth to live up to the expectations of the rest of the world while still maintaining their unique identity. Articles about Saudi’s culture and continually progressive society, Middle Eastern happenings, Islamic art, etc… have created more awareness amongst foreigners about how modern and progressive Saudi has become and gives a glimpse of the rich culture of the region. Oasis’s style in writing and graphics is clean and modern. Local and international writers team up, under the guidance of our young local team, to produce an exciting magazine each time around. The magazine always looks fresh with lots of interesting articles.

Oasis magazine has been picked up literally all over the world, and the reaction is always excitment. From all around Saudi, to the Middle East, the UK, Europe, USA, Brazil, and even Japan, the word has been spreading and we have been growing. It seems that there are a lot of people out there who are addicted to Oasis! A great thing of course. Oasis Magazine’s website (www.oasis-mag.com), has also become a hit with over 40,000 of you in a couple of months learning more about us and checking out our new articles. Through Oasis Magazine’s Facebook group, our readers are able to keep intouch and take a sneak peak at our feature articles. It’s been a year, a year that has brought us together with so many people who share our same enthusiasm for a better understanding of our culture, progressive present, and the world’s abundance of inspiring and exciting news. We hope that all the years of Oasis Magazine will be filled with more of what we are already celebrating today. Thank you, our readers, for your support over this entire year. If you would like any more information on Oasis Magazine, or are interested in getting your hands on one of our older issues, please email us at: Email: info@oasis-mag.com Web: www.oasis-mag.com

Oasis Magazine Issue 2

quenches the mind

Oasis Magazine Issue 1

OASIS MAGAZINE

Oasis Magazine Issue 3

Oasis Magazine Issue 4

arts & culture

Edge of Arabia

London... October, 16, 2008 - December, 13, 2008 Saudi contemporary

artists exhibit their work at the Brunei

Gallery, SOAS, University of London. This art exhibtion featuring 17 Saudi artists, is “the f irst ever comprehensive exhibition of contemporary Saudi art staged in the UK.”

Here, Henry Hemming interviews the Saudi artists involved in ‘Edge of Arabia.’ Lulwah Al-Homoud’s interview is by Venetia Porter (British Museum curator) Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind exhibition! See you in London.

Internationally, Faisal Samra is Saudi Arabia’s best-known contemporary artist. His work has been shown throughout France, parts of Europe, Asia and USA; it’s been displayed in galleries all over the Levant and particularly in the Emirates. Although a Saudi citizen, his studio is in Bahrain. This is where he was born and where he now resides. As well as having shown widely Samra has taught at the College of Fine Arts in Jordan, and it was following his 2005 residency at the Cité Internationale Des Arts that he began Distorted Reality, a powerfully innovative body of work that, superficially at least, presents a caustic departure from his artistic past in terms of its conception, medium and the relationship it bears to his day-to-day existence. Distorted Reality comprises a series of performances documented using digital photographs, computer graphics and video. He presents them as triptychs, and together they form part of his ongoing polemic in response to the work of what he calls the ‘made-up image-producers’: the ad-men and news editors working in contemporary globalised media responsible, collectively, for the saturation of our visual landscape with heavily mediated images. These are created in order to sell us a particular idea or product, and for this they depend absolutely upon the willed fabrication of an unreality. They flatter to deceive. ‘The danger with this type of imagery,’ he explains, ‘is that, most of the time, it disguises the “worse” as the “better” in order to secure or buy for it a space within our field of vision. These “made-up image-producers” have waged a ruthless war that they will win if we do not understand and expose their motives. They look to beautify wherever possible. With Distorted Reality I do the opposite.’ For Samra the role of art is to unmask reality rather than accept the simulacrum that you are presented with. He posits himself, the artist, as the ‘non-made-up image-producer.’ ‘In 2005 this invasion of images became oppressive. I felt it particularly with regard to my children. The role of global news media in justifying the War on Terror was what made my mind up. That’s when I began to work on Distorted Reality.’ At the heart of this series is a succession of unscripted performances acted out by Samra, mostly with his face obscured. ‘It’s not important that it’s me. It could be anyone. But no actor could achieve the effect I wanted.’ Each performance co-

“I’m inspired by many things. The life of Gandhi. The life of Al-Hallaj. My environment, smells, places, tastes of food and sounds, creations by artists such as Joseph Beuys, Soutine, Duchamp, Bacon, Basquiat, the drawings of Michelangelo...” Faisal Samra

nsists of sequential actions, or attempts, that exist free from conventional narrative arcs. Samra improvises using an array of decontextualised materials, props and textiles that are both everyday and theatrical – at times there’s something flamboyantly camp about his emphasis on dressing-up and excess – there are also carcasses in his performances which relate to his childhood. When he was four and had just started to draw on the walls of his home (he would eventually cover them all before moving onto the street), Samra watched a lamb being slaughtered during Eid Al-Adha. It’s the most significant holiday in the Muslim calendar. The animal was then skinned before him and the other children. ‘The first time this happened I was absolutely terrified. But then I grew to love it. All of us, the children, were fascinated by this corpse and how it had turned from being a living animal into meat.’ Francis Bacon once said: ‘Of course we are meat, we are potential carcasses. If I go into a butcher shop I always think it’s surprising that I wasn’t there instead of the animal.’ For Samra the butcher’s shop triggers thoughts of war, commerce, the way we see each other; yet it also hints at the seismic range of human emotion and action: the possibility of killing your brother in order to survive. The carcass in Samra’s performances is the antithesis of the airbrushed made-up image. There’s another connection here between Samra and Bacon, apart from both employing triptychs and having a fixation with carcasses. There is, in Samra’s work, what Gilles Deleuze noted in Bacon’s triptychs as an emphasis on ‘the maximum unity of light and colour for the maximum division of figures.’ This applies exactly to Samra’s photographs. (Also, intriguingly, one of the last letters Deleuze wrote was to Samra, in which he described Samra’s latest body of work as ‘exciting and beautiful.’)

quenches the mind

‘I’ve never seen myself as a conventional person,’ Faisal Samra explains. We’re outside a café on the south bank of the Seine. His head is clean-shaven and he wears a pair of Gandhi-like steel-rimmed spectacles. Just around the corner is the Institut du Monde Arabe where Samra was once employed as a consultant; it has since acquired a number of his pieces and in 1991 held a solo exhibition of his work. It’s summertime when we meet, so Parisians are spending less time inside in front of televisions and more time outdoors. The plane trees overhead are in leaf, which means our eyes are drawn less to billboards or any other paid-for man-made signifiers which, for Samra, is a good thing. It also relates to part of the rationale behind Distorted Reality, his contribution to ‘Edge of Arabia’.

OASIS MAGAZINE

FAISAL SAMRA

With Distorted Reality Faisal Samra achieves several aims: he explores mimetically the challenges of what it is to produce art – art that anticipates change, as the best art throughout history has strived to do – also he articulates his quest for, or acquisition of, identity: each performance is a progression of false-starts and hesitations. By their example they illustrate something of the back-and-forth that exists between our bodies’ movements and their desires, next to the prosaic limitations of their actuality. By the way he positions the camera Samra is both alone and lonely. His struggle appears singular, tragic and at times absurd, yet throughout it remains heroic and is delivered in such a way that you’re unsure whether to feel pathos or bathos. Though perhaps one of the most pertinent themes in Distorted Reality is the lack of meaningful beginning or end.

quenches the mind

‘Creation is, in essence, a continuous cycle of construction and destruction,’ Samra explains. Each action, by virtue of beginning, ends.

OASIS MAGAZINE

Samra constructs a warped reality that is every bit as unreal as the illusion fed to us each day via televisions, computers and posters. That’s the immanent paradox in his work. In their fakery, these performances become ripostes to ‘the overwhelming commercial programming campaign that we are being subjected to.’ How? They show us quite how fake it really is. ‘The principle is simple. If someone has a gun and they point it at you, either you steal theirs, or you get one yourself. That’s what I believe. So with this body of work I bought a gun. Now we are equal.’ Samra wants his audience to build their own defence-systems against pervasive commercial programming. Yet there’s a disconnect here between the conception of his work and its execution. Although he has set himself up in opposition to the ‘image-producers,’ he does not employ their channels of communication. Instead his work is presented in the relatively marginal space of the contemporary art gallery. I ask him about this. ‘It’s hard to use the same channels as them. Don’t forget the people I’m fighting against are the ones who control them. They don’t make it easy. Though I am currently working on something that will utilise similar channels.’

Henry: Do you think you’ve been successful in what you wanted Distorted Reality to achieve? ‘I don’t know. It’s important for people to know that they’re being hypnotised by these images. If we’re not aware of this, then we let ourselves drift and bit by bit we find ourselves completely duped. I am doing everything I can to slow this and I think I have achieved something, yes.’ During most of his performances Samra struggles within reams of canvas. At times he appears to suffocate within the material, until the canvas becomes a skin. This is a return to some of his previous work involving unstretched canvas manipulated into three-dimensional objects in order to lay bare

the spatial division between painting and sculpture. Though that period is in some ways distant. His oeuvre is dominated by breaks with his past. Following each of these ruptures his artistic self turns in on itself, eats, chews and digests, before producing something new. He calls these periodic breaks switches: ‘Every so often I encounter a switch, which leads to a new direction. The first switch came before my degree at Beaux Arts, in 1975, after which I destroyed all the work from before.’

Henry: Who would you say has influenced you over the years? ‘I’m inspired by many things. The life of Gandhi. The life of Al-Hallaj. My environment, smells, places, tastes of food and sounds, creations by artists such as Joseph Beuys, Soutine, Duchamp, Bacon, Basquiat, the drawings of Michelangelo. Having said that, I no longer try to imitate these people. Instead I create the opposite of what I like. That’s important. Without that it’s impossible to move forward.’

Distorted Reality (photograph of performance) by Faisal Samra, 2007.

OASIS MAGAZINE

‘But no switch in my art rules out the possibility of return. I don’t like to burn bridges. Sometimes I miss the touch of material, so I will return to a question posed by a former theme. If the logic of an earlier series remains unresolved then I can continue with it. Some themes allow me to revisit repeatedly, others are exhausted after maybe thirty pieces. For example my Text/Body series is a place I can return to regularly.’

quenches the mind

Like a stream of artists before him, from Sir Alfred Gilbert through to Michael Landy, in doing this Samra lives out the paradox of artistic production: he acknowledges the destructive potential of the creative act yet allows creation and destruction to exist symbiotically. In this sense he’s been able to maintain a distance from the finished state of his work – for Samra the act of production, along with the idea itself, is more significant than its plastic reality.

quenches the mind

OASIS MAGAZINE

Ahmed Mater being interviewed at the British Museum’s ‘Word into Art’ Exhibition.

AHMED MATER AL ZIAD ASEERI Ahmed Mater is one of the rising stars of Saudi contemporary art. He is also a man of, as he puts it, many masks. There’s Mater the doctor, the fully qualified GP employed in a hospital in Abha; or Mater the landscape photographer whose photographs have been exhibited widely and compiled in a book. Then there’s Mater the contemporary artist, one of only two from Saudi Arabia included in the British Museum’s ‘Word into Art’ exhibition or the Sharjah Biennial 2007. Mater is also responsible for a number of local cultural initiatives, as well as being co-curator of ‘Edge of Arabia’. As of our interview in May 2008 he had another mask to add to his repertoire – face of mobile phone company Mobily’s latest nationwide advertising campaign. Several days before we spoke he was stopped in the street for the first time by someone who recognised him from one of the billboard posters. It won’t be the last time this happens. Born in 1979, Mater grew up in Abha, capital of the Aseer province in the south-west of the country. His company of young, like-minded artists is called Ibn Aseer, meaning ‘son of Aseer’. This Aseeri identity is significant. Abha, at its heart, is unlike Riyadh, Jeddah or Dammam. It’s more rugged, the

roads wind round rocky outcrops, there’s more colour, more trees, some pregnant with blossom, you’ll see men wearing their hair long with the fabric tied roughly around their heads in a way it would not be up in Riyadh. The architecture is different too, being born of an older tradition that owes certain motifs and structural mores to nearby Yemen. Aged 18, Mater joined Abha’s Al-Miftaha Artists’ Village, part of the King Fahd Cultural Centre. His meteoric trajectory as an artist begins there, in the heart of Abha. The Artists’ Village comprises approximately twenty whitewashed buildings, each two storeys tall and built around a restored 15th century structure. The doors are blue, the armature of each window deep, and through certain doors you can see artists at work with canvases on their walls, the debris of creation strewn over the floor and music being played in the background. It’s a good environment in which to make art; and it’s not only Saudi artists who work here. Mater remembers the week in 2000 when HRH The Prince of Wales took up residence in studio no. 9, just across from his. Prince Charles had come to visit his friend HRH Prince Khalid Al Faisal, then governor of Aseer, as part of their ‘Painting and Patronage’ project. Prince Charles went on to make some watercolours in the surrounding landscape.

Three years later another English artist, Stephen Stapleton, visited Mater in his studio and saw some of Mater’s new work: a series of paint-based collages featuring over-exposed X-Rays he’d picked up at the hospital. Surrounding the X-Rays were blocks of colour with an array of diagrams, medical notation and anatomical script layered on top. If before Mater had been making generic paintings concerning local customs and folklore, he was now reaping the rewards of months of reading and research and producing art that not only examined his identity but did so uncompromisingly. It was visually rich, conceptually brave, and quite unlike anything the artists around him were producing. No longer was he presenting a kitsch reflection of reality. Instead, by exploring the duality of his existence as both artist and doctor he had begun to mine a conundrum. The power of his work lay within its unresolved tension. Stapleton showed one of these works to Venetia Porter, Curator of the Islamic Collections at the British Museum, and Curator of their ‘Word into Art’ exhibition (she is also an advisor to ‘Edge of Arabia’). She purchased X-Ray 2003 for the museum’s permanent collection and included it in the forthcoming exhibition, one that would turn out to be the most significant survey of Middle Eastern art in recent years.

Talisam X-Ray (mixed media) by Ahmed Mater, 2008.

Henry: You’ve recently become the face of Mobily, you’re a successful artist and a doctor currently sitting medical exams. Do you ever find it difficult to swap between your different identities? ‘Sometimes I have to partition these separate parts. But there’s an inevitable overlap and that can be useful. Not only do they relate to one another, these different parts, but they feed each other and make the other parts more interesting.’

Henry: What is the role of the artist in Saudi Arabia today? ‘First of all to give the best of themselves. Also, to reflect what’s happening around them. Not to reflect things that people already know. At the same time it’s very important that today’s artists don’t pander to what they think a Western audience

OASIS MAGAZINE

We meet in Mater’s studio. He’s bright and thoughtful, and an unlikely mixture of influences and drives. His iPhone rarely leaves his hand; if it does it’s to be replaced by a Cohiba no. 1 cigar. Some days he’ll wear jeans and a shirt, otherwise he’ll be in traditional thob, ghutra and egal. He builds his own websites and has a good understanding of marketing and promotion, yet at the same time he comes from a traditional Aseeri family and grew up far from the bustling centre of Saudi Arabia. Culturally, he remains rooted in this. His mother is also an artist and practices the traditional Aseeri technique of decorating rooms using colourful, mosaic-like grids of squares and chevrons.

quenches the mind

On the back of Mater’s inclusion in ‘Word into Art’ came a burst of positive publicity in Saudi Arabia and the Arab-speaking world. As well as myriad interviews and articles about him, Mater’s next exhibition was opened by His Majesty King Abdullah. For this the King flew down to Abha, telling the audience that young men like Ahmed Mater were an essential part of Saudi Arabia’s future. In case it’s at all unclear, it is great honour to have the King of Saudi Arabia open your exhibition, and it’s rare for this to happen to an artist in his twenties. As Mater explained, X-Ray 2003 has changed his life.

Mixed media artwork by Ahmed Mater.

quenches the mind

OASIS MAGAZINE

X-Ray (mixed media) by Ahemd Mater, 2003.

at the British Museum, and

Curator of their ‘Word into Art’ exhibition... pur-

chased X-Ray 2003 for the museum’s permanent col-

lection and included it in

the forthcoming exhibition, one that would turn out to be the most signif icant

survey of Middle Eastern art in recent years.” Henry Hemming

Henry: In terms of the changing identity of the Saudi artist, how would the average man in the street describe an artist today? What’s the stereotype of a Saudi artist? ‘Let’s find out.’ Mater turns round and shouts out of the back door of his studio. A man happens to be walking past – he’s there to find out where to get tickets for the poetry reading later that day. Mater asks him what the typical Saudi artist is like. ‘He says, ‘I don’t know.’ That’s your answer. No-one really knows. If I’d asked him about a poet we’d have been here all day.’

Henry: Are artists and poets seen as similar? ‘All over the Arabian peninsula people listen more than they look. So there have always been more poets than artists. Anyone here can tell you the names of their favourite poets and recite poems to you word-perfect, or they’ll know stories about the lives of the famous poets throughout Saudi history. But they won’t know so much about artists.’

Henry: Will it always be like that in Saudi Arabia? ‘Probably.’

Henry: Tell me about the two large illuminations in ‘Edge of Arabia’. ‘They are laid out in exactly the same way as the beginning of a religious text. I have also added the word waqf beneath each. This means charity. Traditionally in religious texts you have two pages, symmetrical in design, containing abstract design. The craftsmen would always spend a great deal of time on these opening pages: they’re the first thing you see. Instead of a traditional geometry I have printed two facing Xray images of human torsos. I prepared the paper using tea, pomegranate, coffee and other materials traditionally used on these kinds of pages. By using them you ensure that when you come to paint onto the paper it will have an extraordinary luminous quality – the paint will truly shine. And that’s what I want to do with this piece, to illuminate. I am giving light. It’s about two humans in conversation. Us and them, and how this encounter gives light. Dar a luz. So many religions around the world share this concept of giving light, not darkness. It is one religious idea that has reached mankind through many different windows.’ Mixed media artwork by Ahemd Mater.

quenches the mind

of the Islamic Collections

wants to see, because there are artists here who make work because they know it will go down well on CNN, if you understand what I’m saying. It does not come from inside. Over the last decade, with the rise of the internet and satellite television many Saudi artists have been exposed to the global media, which can be good and bad. Instead of making political art, or art about science or religion, it’s important to include everything that surrounds you, and not to construct mental partitions in your head.’

23 OASIS MAGAZINE

“Venetia Porter, Curator

OASIS MAGAZINE

quenches the mind

Henry: What was the first piece of art that really mattered to you? ‘Art as Idea as Idea (Meaning) by Joseph Kosuth. This was the first time I understood something of what was possible with contemporary art. I still find it an amazing piece.’

Henry: Which artists have influenced you most? ‘Basquiat right now, although I’ve only recently come to his work. Basquiat wrote all of Gray’s Anatomy in one of his pieces, just as I did, unaware of him, in one of my early X-Ray works. I like Gandhi also, although perhaps he is not an artist. I like the power of expression that comes out of just doing something. Not talking but doing. I also like Forrest Gump in this respect.’

Henry: You’ve got one of the largest libraries I’ve seen in Saudi Arabia, where do these books come from? ‘Mostly the internet. That has changed everything. Also there’s so much to read on the internet about art. And for me, reading is the most important thing you can do as an artist. It brings balance to your mind and body.’

Henry: Who do you listen to while you work? ‘Marcel Khalife, the Lebanese singer, Umm Kulthum and Bob Dylan. I like his life, and the way he was brave enough to change as often as he did. He continued to make art, no matter how cross people become with him.’

Henry: Would you continue to make work after people attack you? ‘Yes. It’s already happened. Dylan could do it because he knew he was right.’

Henry: Do you know that you’re right? ‘Yes. I’m strong like that.’ This strength, combined with a shrewd understanding of his environment and a well-tuned visual aesthetic, helps explain why Ahmed Mater is one of the brightest stars of Saudi contemporary art.

Ahmed Mater in his studio working on Illumination1 (x-ray and mixed media), 2008. In the background is Illumination 2 (x-ray and mixed media), 2008.

25 OASIS MAGAZINE

‘I’m reading about primary healthcare in Cuba. It’s fascinating! With almost no money they have one of the best primary healthcare services in the world. I like the utilitarianism of this. It’s giving me ideas.’

quenches the mind

Henry: What are you reading now?

SHADIA & RAJA ALEM

quenches the mind

It’s hard to know how to describe Shadia and Raja Alem. ‘They’ exist beyond the paradigms of a conventional artistic profile. For starters, ‘they’ could be ‘she’, such is the intensity of their sistership when it hits you in moments of truly helixlike dyadic unity. It’s not often that you meet two people who can complete each other’s sentences, choose to live with each other and are siblings. Yet they are not traditional collaborators, in the sense that they rarely work on a piece jointly. Instead they contribute equal parts manufactured in isolation from each other.

OASIS MAGAZINE

Which is which? Within their family, Shadia is the black one; Raja is the moon. Shadia is the one who paints, draws and creates installations. She has exhibited in Saudi Arabia and Europe, and is supported by Al-Mansouria Foundation. Raja writes. She files regular pieces for a Riyadh-based newspaper and produces novels – for which she has become one of the best known writers in the Arab World – she also creates text to exist alongside Shadia’s work, as she has done with Jinniyat Lar and Jah Eye. Jinniyat Lar began as a series of 21 paintings by Shadia, to which Al-Mansouria Foundation asked Raja to add text. This allowed each painting to be transformed into a visual fragment of poetic meaning. Jah Eye, meanwhile, comprises a series of Shadia’s paintings on transparent material, each one reminiscent of an enlarged eye. The pupil becomes circumnavigated by Raja’s elegant, spidery text. Jah means beautiful. The transparency is essential, and is suggestive of the idea that by looking at an eye in this microscopic detail you might, with time, reach beyond it. In another sense these works become fingerprints, each one a unique memento of an existence suspended in time. I go to Paris to meet Shadia and Raja Alem in their apartment on Cité Island, a stone’s throw from Notre Dame. They sit at opposite ends of a table before their laptops, straight-backed and fashionably dressed, like two gamine bookends. In the background the television plays a selection of music videos.

Henry: Shadia, Raja, how long have you been working together? S: ‘As children we were always playing together and making things around each other, yet we didn’t start working together until much later. Ever since I was born I’ve been scribbling. Scribbling everywhere. Always the same girl with outstretched arms. In the house in Taif where we spent time growing up all the doors have drawings of this same girl.’ R: ‘Shadia’s girl.’ S: ‘She got taller as I did, longer arms, longer legs.’ R: ‘Then she made these comics to communicate with the rest of the family and make us laugh. So Shadia, with this comic character, from the very beginning she was the joker, always wanting to communicate.’ S: ‘Raja was my first audience.’ R: ‘While she was making comics, I’d lie. I’ve been a big liar

“As children we were always playing together and making things around each other, yet we didn’t start working together until much later.” Shadia Alem since I was a child. These lies have become books.’ S: ‘No! They’re not lies Raja. It’s imagination, beautiful stories.’ R: ‘Still lies. It means that if you ask me a straight question I will never give you a straight answer. I will give you what I think, not the reality.’

Henry: Okay. Which one of you is older? R: ‘What do you think?’ Henry: Raja. Sorry, that’s not to say you look old. R: ‘People always think that.’ S: ‘Raja likes to count, to arrange things, organise.’ R: ‘It’s true. For me writing is being tense.’ S: ‘And being tense has made her older. Whereas I just play.’ R: ‘No! It’s because I’m wiser.’

Henry: So Raja, you’re younger? R: ‘Yes.’ R: ‘But to get back to your question, after university we joined a programme in Jeddah in cooperation with UNICEF and the Ministry of Education. It was about changing the way children were taught, emphasising play and creativity. We created this programme along with ten other women, and this had a big impact on our art. Working with children gave us ideas.’ S: ‘After six years we quit.’ R: ‘We wrote a book about the methods – so it would not die – then we quit.’ S: ‘The time when we quit was also when our father died.’ R: ‘After that I concentrated on writing, Shadia began to work more on her art.’ S: ‘And we started to live abroad.’

Henry: Do you or did you feel any limitations to what you can display or create in Makkah? R: ‘Any limitations we feel must be seen in the wake of Safia bin Zagir and Mona Mosaly, two female Saudi artists who exhibited in Jeddah during the 1960s.’ S: ‘All the newspapers wrote about their work. They described it as a breakthrough and called these women pioneers.’ R: ‘Not only because they were women but because of the quality of their art.’ S: ‘Although I wasn’t there to see how they exhibited they made it easier for me to exhibit later. But now? Generally, it’s very easy to create things but when I exhibit I still have to think very carefully about what to show and what to hold back.’

Henry: Considering you exhibit in both France and Saudi Arabia, do you have a specific audience in mind when you create work? S: ‘I think only about how to follow the international art movement. Maybe that’s what moved me to do installation and things like that. While I have had these kinds of ideas since I was young, only recently did I realise that I could call this art. It was such a relief!’

Henry: When did you realise that? S: ‘When I visited London in 1999 and saw the Turner Prize exhibition and Tracey Emin’s Bed. It was fantastic. It spoke to me. Maybe I have something in common with her, I don’t know.’ R: ‘I have never been aware of censorship when I write. When you read one of my books you won’t know it’s me. You won’t know it’s a woman. My inspirations are ancient Arabic books with imaginary mythic creatures like Kitab Al-Hayawan, the Arabic translation of Aristotle’s zoological texts. Or the work of Al-Qazwini.’

Henry: How different are your two creative processes? S: ‘I’m not rushed into anything. I do everything for play.’

Henry: Really? Even your 9/11 piece? (a series of rolled up newspapers made to look like sticks of dynamite with blood-red paint spattered over them) S: ‘You’re right. What I mean by playful is not feeling fear.’

S: ‘I made a cover for one of Raja’s books.’ R: ‘Now, whenever I do a book the publisher requires a cover from Shadia. The first book she made a cover for was about a journey, an imaginary ascent from the desert to Wadi Akbar. This is where the creative djinns live. All Arabic poets, whenever they are inspired, people say, “Oh, it’s the djinn of Wadi Akbar whispering in their ear.” And there’s a fine line between this creativity and insanity. Shadia made a picture of the princess who makes this journey and it was exactly right. That’s when I realised then that we should work together.’

Henry: Do you ever feel the djinn of Wadi Akbar talking to you? R: ‘Oh yes.’ S: ‘Yes.’ R: ‘Especially me. When I write, always, when I read it later I have to ask myself who wrote it. It’s not me, really. When I write it’s as if I’m in a trance. Like when writing the Jinniyat. It began with Shadia’s images and I was to provide text, but for a month I couldn’t do it. Then one Friday, it all came out. I wrote 40 stories in half hour.’

Henry: What do you like about working with each other? R: ‘Sometimes there’s a kind of portal that exists between our minds. One day, I was writing a very serious book, and I came to the ending but couldn’t work out how to write it. Then Shadia told me about a dream she had had. I couldn’t believe it! This dream was the ending to my book. She even had the name of the heroine right, yet I hadn’t told her anything about it. I like working around her. When she works on an art project, the whole house turns into a workshop. There is creative energy everywhere. It’s a great mess.’

Henry: Does being this close to each other ever make it difficult for people to find a way in? S: ‘Yes. That’s why neither of us are married. It’s difficult to break into this unit.’ R: ‘We have a companionship. We enjoy the same things, the same art, we have the same taste in these things.’ S: ‘We complete each other. I’m this, and she’s that. I’m here and she’s there.’ R: ‘She’s an expert at getting lost. I’m good at finding things. We complement each other and life is about this kind of companionship.’ S: ‘I do the spending. She does accounting.’ R: ‘She earns more though. I benefit very rarely from writing, only really when I get a prize.’ S: ‘We have one bank account, and there’s no limit to who can spend what proportion.’

quenches the mind

S: ‘A great influence. Makkah is the Islamic centre of pilgrimage. So we have an entire universe there, in our city. We are always looking after pilgrims in our house. We see the way they dress, their clothing, their language, their way of thinking.’

Henry: How do you work together? When was the first time you made something together?

27 OASIS MAGAZINE

Henry: You were born in Makkah and you’ve lived a lot of your lives in Makkah, what kind of influence has that had on your work?

Henry: Have you ever felt the need to break away from each other? R: ‘Yes, of course. But in the end we realise that it’s more pleasurable to be companions. It doesn’t prevent special people from coming in.’

quenches the mind

Henry: In relation to your work, what’s the difference between text and images?

OASIS MAGAZINE

S: ‘Writing is more tense. With painting you are fluid and can flow.’ R: ‘With writing you are imprisoned within a world of characters, sounds, spirits and life. They’re totally different processes.’ S: ‘I become so tense when I read, compared to when viewing a painting. There are certain sounds I cannot bear when I’m reading.’ R: ‘I envy artists. They can influence you with one block of paint or design. A writer can only influence you if you give them time and patience.’ S: ‘But the most powerful is when you bring together visual and textual. Video clips. When I’m making videos, that’s when I feel the greatest control over my audience.’

Henry: Are there djinn in Paris? S: ‘Yes, in the Louvre.’

Henry: Really? S: ‘They go sightseeing there.’ R: ‘Absolutely. Everyday when I cross the Seine there is a beauty that I cannot believe, and it’s the djinns who create this. They are everywhere, creating the lightning, the weather, the beauty we see around us.’ S: ‘Our location is so interesting. I am trying to make art about the fact that when we lived in Makkah, we were close to the Holy Mosque. In Jeddah, there was a mosque right outside our front door so we’d always hear the call to prayer. Here, too, I listen to the bells of Notre Dame. When I started to live here it was confusing and I’d always recite Muslim prayers when I heard those bells.’ R: ‘All of them are calling for God. Calling for holiness.’

Henry: Shadia, what are your ambitions as an artist? S: ‘To be in the Louvre. Although I’ll have to wait until I’m dead.’

Henry: How about the Louvre in Abu Dhabi? S: ‘No! No way. That’s not the real thing!’

Henry: What was the first piece of art that really mattered to you? S: ‘Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). One of the covers I painted for Raja looked just like this.’

Henry: Which artists have influenced you most? S: ‘Earlier it was Picasso. Now it’s Olafur Eliasson or Bill Viola.’

Henry: What do you listen to while you work? S: ‘Classical Western music or MTV videos and NRJ. I love these. I always have them playing in the background. The movement of the bodies is so beautiful, the composition clever, and the artistry is beautiful too.’

Henry: What should change in the world? R: ‘Physical travel. Our voices can travel, our words and thoughts can travel. But I’m looking forward to when our bodies can travel by light. In medieval Arabic written culture, a Sufi can travel to Makkah in one night. It’s the same idea. If I told you in 1900 that in a hundred years time you can talk to someone in China with a click of a button you’d tell me I’m crazy, you’d have me burnt. So a hundred years from now, I’m sure some kind of instant travel will be possible.’

Henry: What is art for? S: ‘To express beauty. To give you a place and time to travel, in your mind. It allows things to change.’ R: ‘It is a way of presenting change.’

Henry: What could you imagine doing if you didn’t do this? S: [looks blankly at Raja] R: [looks blankly at Shadia]

“S: ...when we lived in Makkah, we were close to the Holy Mosque. In Jeddah, there was a mosque right outside our front door so we’d always hear the call to prayer. Here, too, I listen to the bells of Notre Dame... R: All of them are caling for God. Calling for holiness.”Shadia & Raja Alem

MAHDI AL-JERAIBI

‘Because I destroyed it. I spent two days doing this. I don’t really know how I did it, but it is all gone now. I even destroyed my tools. After two days of this I collapsed, but luckily someone found me and took me to hospital. I spent a few days recuperating and now I’m fine.’

Henry: Can you tell me why you destroyed your studio? ‘There was an accumulation of certain problems in my life. Nothing to do with my family, society, or anything like that. It was more to do with feeling that I was alone with my ideas and way of seeing. That no-one understands. That’s not to say I’m a moody person, but sometimes the art I make is.’

Henry: Would you say your best art comes from this moody place? ‘Yes.’ For ‘Edge of Arabia’ Al-Jeraibi has contributed a bank of wooden writing-surfaces removed from ageing schooldesks found in Makkah, as well as five ‘zincographs’. The zincographs, identical in their dimensions and construction, are made from hair set within encaustic that has been suspended over a wooden tray. Protean painterly gestures weave in and out of these waves of hair, so each finished work resembles a photographic slide, or a series of cells flattened between layers of Perspex in order to be examined in a laboratory. With each hair containing the DNA of its former owner, these works shift beyond the paradigms of a conventional portrait. Brilliantly, in this setting, they hint at something both futuristic and medieval. It’s here that the geographic context of Al-Jeraibi’s practice comes into play, as does the identity of the men and women whose hair has been used. The longer, more tousled hair in one belongs to his wife – at first she didn’t really want to donate her hair to her husband’s artistic cause but Al-Jeraibi talked her round. He promised her artistic immortality. She acquiesced. Another piece contains the hair of his friend, while the other three feature hair taken from the heaps that accrue in barbershops in Makkah as pilgrims completing hajj or umrah are shorn of their locks. Cutting one’s hair like this symbolizes both spiritual rebirth and the cleansing of sins. So these hairs have spiritual significance. But, also, there is in Makkah the remains of a preIslamic superstition to do with the bad magic that can be wrought against you if your hair falls into the wrong hands. So this material alludes not only to spells that might have been cast thousands of years ago, but to modern-day cloning that requires no more than a single strand of hair. Magicians of old, modern-day artists, scientists, all can be seen as alchemists

endeavouring, in their own way, to pull off the greatest trick of all: creating something out of nothing.

Henry: Was it difficult to get hold of the hair? ‘Not really,’ he says with a grin. ‘I have my sources. I became friends with the son of one of the main barbers in Makkah and I got to know other barbers. In all, the day after hajj finished, I collected 25 bags of hair.’

Henry: Do you ever use your own hair? ‘No.’

Henry: And for you what does the hair signify? ‘It’s a human trace. It’s also an artistic expression of life and death. The hair symbolises the human self at this point of renewal as well as its accumulated layers of identity.’ One of the most important principles in Al-Jeraibi’s work is that of the dialectic. After completing his zincographs Al-Jeraibi asked a friend to write a poem inspired by them to be displayed next to them. ‘It’s not just that I believe in the dialectic. It’s also that it seems to be unhealthy for writers, poets and playwrights to become isolated from one another. With cross-fertilisation, art becomes richer. So does culture, in general.’ In light of this, Al-Jeraibi has recently spent time working with an experimental theatre group in the north of the country. This belief in interdisciplinary dialogue and artistic dialectics also inspired his original presentation of the abandoned 25-yearold schooldesks in Jeddah Atelier in 2000. ‘I wanted to stir something in the way people engaged with particular artworks. I wanted people to be involved. Also these desks represented a collective memory. So it was important that the audience felt some kind of ownership or involvement with them. I wanted it to be like a theatrical display with the fourth wall no longer there.’

29 OASIS MAGAZINE

Henry: Why?

quenches the mind

“Art should be an experience rather than something that you simply look at. I wanted to question the cultural mode of exhibition-hanging, as well as introduce an element of theatricality...” Al-Jeraibi

There’s an intensity to the way Mahdi Al-Jeraibi speaks. Throughout our interview his left leg jangles and drums like a machine drilling for oil. It’s restrained and patient, yet restless. Though his studio is in Makkah, home to the Grand Mosque – the holiest site in Islam and the geographic centre of the Islamic faith – we meet in Jeddah. As of a few weeks ago AlJeraibi’s studio is no more.

With his painted response to the desks already hung, the schooldesks were placed inside Hessian sacks marked ‘ALL WERE HERE’ and heaped together in the centre of the room. On the walls opposite was a series of hooks corresponding to rings screwed into each desk. On arrival members of the audience were invited to hang the desks on the wall as they liked. ‘Art should be an experience rather than something that you simply look at. I wanted to question the cultural mode of exhibition-hanging, as well as introduce an element of theatricality to the way these desks were shown.’ Nothing like this had ever been attempted before. It was one of the most inclusive and ground-breaking artistic presentations in Saudi Arabian art history, not least because of the objects being used. When you get up close to the desks you encounter a myopic palimpsest of names, student numbers, places, crushes, football teams, slogans, or careful diagrammatic representations of the above tattooed into the wooden flesh of the desk. There’s a heart with an arrow through it, or a football pitch with crosses explaining how a particular goal was scored – a goal of delicious, unforgettable beauty. Each is a trace that has been allowed to last beyond both its creator and the action that bore it. In some, the scratching is so ferocious and sustained that a hole has appeared. These desks become monuments to unrequited daydreams, the art of looking-out-of-the-window, literally or metaphorically; but they also explore the latent power of the mark. From the Lascaux Caves via Cy Twombly to a secondary school in Makkah, the possibilities are in one sense identical. For a Western audience the meaning of these marks is also, in places, intensified, when they appear to oscillate between being pared-down visual signifiers and streams of Arabic text. None of these marks were made by Al-Jeraibi. So to add to the list of firsts, the occasion in 2000 when he showed his Dialectics was the first time a Saudi artist had presented a body of work to which he had added nothing. The power of the art lay instead in its conceptual design.

“He’s always searching. Each exhibition is entirely different but they have a consistency of style. He’s a free thinker. He comes up with ideas that no-one else thought of. He’s also a very well-read artist, which is so important. Above all he’s someone who’s not working in order to sell, but because he absolutely needs to make a statement. At Al-Mansouria, we see art as a tool for dealing with reality, as a revolution against the monotonous vision of the surrounding environment. Al-Jeraibi personif es this.”’HRH i Princes Jawaher bint Majed (Al-Mansouria Founder) There’s no doubt that Mahdi Al-Jeraibi is one of the pioneers of Saudi contemporary art, though it’s unlikely that he’d have been able to explore so many artistic avenues without the support of Al-Mansouria Foundation. Over the last decade they have purchased Al-Jeraibi’s work exclusively, as well as funding exhibitions and organising residencies for him. As HRH Princess Jawaher bint Majed bin Abdulaziz, the founder of Al-Mansouria, explained: ‘He had three exhibitions in Jeddah that received no critical praise. They were either ignored by the media, or attacked. These people were shocked by his zincographs, or dialectics. They wrote, ‘Is he trying to make a fool of us?’ But when I saw his work I was fascinated. It is so powerful, really. And because of a foundation like mine he’s been able to continue.’

Henry: What do you like about his work? ‘He’s always searching. Each exhibition is entirely different but they have a consistency of style. He’s a free thinker. He comes up with ideas that no-one else thought of. He’s also a very well-read artist, which is so important. Above all he’s someone who’s not working in order to sell, but because he absolutely needs to make a statement. At Al-Mansouria, we see art as a tool for dealing with reality, as a revolution against the monotonous vision of the surrounding environment. AlJeraibi personifies this.’ I ask Al-Jeraibi if he minded the confused reviews that some of his early work received. ‘Not at all.’ He looks truly non-plussed. His leg has not stopped drumming. ‘As long as I’m stimulating dialogue of some kind it does not matter what negative things are said.’

quenches the mind

OASIS MAGAZINE

Natures Body 1 (oil on canvas) by Yousef Jaha, 2004.

YOUSEF JAHA Yousef Jaha was born in 1953 in Makkah where he continues to work and teach. It’s a location that has exerted a powerful influence on his practice. ‘My upbringing in Makkah influenced not only my work but also who I am,’ he explains. ‘The spirituality of that environment is what made me want to be an artist. I wanted to respond to that atmosphere.’ One of his earliest memories is of making a copy of a Picasso. It was a portrait of his mother. Jaha saw it in a magazine, by chance, and remembers sneaking out of the divan where his father was entertaining guests and making this copy of a copy at the top of the staircase.

After an abortive few years studying as an architect he trained in Riyadh as an art teacher and has spent the last 31 years teaching art to primary school children in between exhibiting his work in Saudi Arabia and abroad. These two strands to his life are of course entwined, and he encourages the overlap. ‘I learn more from the children than I did from my training in Riyadh. Being around them reminds me to be natural and impulsive. To make marks without pretension. This, along with living in Makkah, has had a huge impact on my artistic expression.’ His work is distinctive for its fluidity of mark, its consistent tonal harmony and the expression he generates using loose, painterly forms. There is an emphasis on landscape, exteriority, ambiguity of form, and a relative lack of clear-cut visual signifiers. There are also framing pictorial devices in many of his works suggestive of a landscape within the mind: a dreamscape born of the subconscious. His marks conjure clouds, haze, sybaritic skyscapes and snow coming on. They are virtual Saudi Arabian arcadias that are every bit as familiar as they are enticing. In the argot of a true Romantic, Jaha sees himself as: ‘The thinker. The visionary. I am the person who, I’m not sure how you say this in English, the one who starts the fire. The igniter. Always in my work you can see the search for the human soul in what remains of nature. For me nature exists as a life-giving force, yet the main element in my work is the human being. So what I strive to represent is the collision between the two, especially when man is alone in the desert. Alone in nature.’ Throughout his career Jaha has been fascinated by the idea of a human trace: the remains of a fire in the desert, its embers all but extinguished; a footprint in the sand pointing in the direction of a trail once taken. The word Jaha uses to describe this element in his work is athr, itself a leitmotif of Arabic poetry from the pre-Islamic Mu’allaqat through to the present.

Henry: Do you think the work you’re making now is part of the classic Yousef Jaha style? ‘It’s difficult to say. Always, I want to develop and become

a better artist, yet I’m content with the way of working I’ve reached now. Content without feeling satisfied. So yes to your question, but only a humble yes.’

Henry: How would you describe your practice? ‘It involves a lot of sitting still. I spend much more time thinking about the paintings than making them. I have a conversation with them in my head, and after a long discussion I’ll take the brush, the palette knife, or whatever it is, and add the conversation that took place. Luckily I have more time to do this now that I’ve just retired from teaching. The process for each painting is roughly the same. I sketch the idea on the canvas, hang it on the wall and then work on it next to other paintings. I keep adding layers until it feels finished at which point it has to leave the studio. Anything that I leave on the walls I will add to.’

Henry: What happens when you run out of ideas? ‘I drive out of Makkah to get closer to nature. Whenever I feel the calling, this is what I do.’

Henry: What do you listen to while you work? ‘A real variety. From Beethoven to Sayyid Keeshk [a Muslim cleric famous for his sense of humour], or New Age music, especially a young Saudi singer called Hisham. It’s similar to what you call ‘lounge music’ in the West.’

Henry: What are you looking forward to most about visiting London? ‘Seeing how people respond to the work. I have no idea what it will be like. Also the museums. I’ve never been to London. So I want to see The National Gallery, and the museum with the waxworks... What’s it called? Madame Tussauds. That’s it. I’m looking forward to that a great deal.’

The traditional part of Jeddah where he grew up in the 1960s is far from where he is now, historically and geographically. Above all, he remembers it as a place with few boundaries. ‘I could go anywhere. Any house, any room. I’d accompany the women from my neighbourhood to the market each week and help them choose the materials and fabrics. They soon realised that I had an eye for colour, and I think that’s where it all began.’ At school he was top of his class and famous for his graceful, well-proportioned script. He was always being asked to make signs for school events, and in his spare time would earn money painting shop-signs; sometimes he’d go to the nearby girls’ school to decorate books with his legendary hand-writing. He was bright, good at sport, ambitious, and with little inkling at this point in his life that he’d end up as an artist. In his late teens he arrived at one of life’s crossroads. It was the early 1980s and in Jeddah, along with the rest of Saudi Arabia, the economy was booming. All around him young entrepreneurs were getting rich quick. ‘It was a boom not just of the economy, but of the soul. And for me this was the most difficult time in my life. I didn’t want to chase money like all my friends. I wanted to study, but at the same time my father became very ill. The medicine was expensive and he couldn’t afford it. So I had to decide whether to apply to university or to start working straightaway in order to help my family.’

quenches the mind

Abdulaziz Ashour is a happy man. The work he’s making today, he explains, represents his golden period. Now 46, Ashour has gone through a lot artistically and emotionally to arrive at this point, and it’s worth running through some of this to get a better understanding of this man.

33 OASIS MAGAZINE

ABDULAZIZ ASHOUR

In the end he tried to do both, studying Business Administration at university in the mornings and working in the afternoons as a court scribe, writing signs and working in the local car dealership. With this he was able to pay the rent on his parents’ house and buy medicine for his father. But he didn’t tell his family about this. Instead he made these payments in secret. Abdulaziz Ashour was and is a workaholic. Feeling that his life at this point was not busy enough, he began to attend a summer school where he learnt how to paint, completing the first of many canvases in 1983, aged 21. Soon after, he decided to become an artist – though not a full-time artist. And this is one of the major differences between the artists featured in ‘Edge of Arabia’ and their equivalent working in a European or North American context: almost none of the former make a living exclusively from art which is why their stories are so varied. Ashour is no exception, and for the last 25 years he has been employed at the Ministry of Energy, something that has clearly affected his choice of materials: within his canvases you’ll find circuit-boards, wires and CDs. As well as Duchamp, Malevich, Klee or Miró, one of his favourite artists is the Catalan Antoni Tàpies, along with various other artists associated with Arte Povera. Ashour’s paintings in ‘Edge of Arabia’ are part of a series that takes as its starting point the colour white. White is usually a passive partner to a spectrum of more powerful colours, and is used to thicken, soften or subdue their tonal bite. Ashour has tried to do something different with it. He has made white his dominant compositional force, referring to it as his bride and treating it with requisite care. Breaking up his painted surface are digital paths of technological communication, interspersed by markings reminiscent of an aerial map with targets and zones demarcated as if military targets. The appearance of these militaristic marks coincided with the end of the 1st Gulf War in 1991. From this point he felt the region was on edge. ‘X’ denotes a point of focus, a collision, as well as the present. When he was a boy Ashour saw this X everywhere. He became obsessed with it. It was on the walls, the furniture, the cracks in the floor, or it was hidden within the programmes used to orchestrate the technology surrounding him. ‘O’ stands for the future. His studio is in the basement of a building on the outskirts of Jeddah. There is little or no natural light so he works beneath halogen strips, usually to the accompaniment of classical music, be it Beethoven, Mozart or Brahms. Set across the length of a partition in this space is an immense library, something he is proud of. I ask him what he’d do if he wasn’t an artist.

“Ashour’s paintings in ‘Edge of Arabia’ are part of a series that takes as its starting point the colour white. White is usually a passive partner to a spectrum of more powerful colours, and is used to thicken, soften or subdue their tonal bite. Ashour has tried to do something different with it.” Henry Hemming

‘I’d just read all day. It’s the most important thing, really. There was even a period when I stopped painting for three years and did nothing but read. They were three of the most beautiful years of my life. I read the most important novels, I learnt about the history of art around the world, so when I started to paint again, I had the energy of all these writers in my mind as well as their imagery.’ Having worked briefly as Art Advisor to the Ministry of Culture and Information, Ashour is now set to leave his job at the Ministry of Energy in order to become, finally, a full-time artist. ‘That wouldn’t have been possible ten years ago in Saudi Arabia. In those days there were very few ways an artist could connect his work to the public. But that’s changed now. There is a new generation of artists working in a different way and I hope to be a part of this. Saudi art today has taken a step forward. The voice of the artist is louder than before, and although there are people who remain suspicious of artists and what they do, the voice of art itself will always be loudest. When we die, it’s our art that survives us.’

LULWAH AL-HOMOUD ‘Above all forms of communication the relation between The Creator and the creation fascinates me the most. This dimension that could only be reached through faith is what inspires my creativity to produce designs without the restriction of time and space, away from life events, where there is no limit for my soul to grow.’

Though she was always drawn to calligraphy. Having trained to use the reed pen, or qalam, she began to study the intricacies of the Arabic script in London with renowned Pakistani calligrapher Rashid Butt. Rather than follow the path of the traditional khattat, she found herself drawn more to the geometric principles behind the structure of the letter. It was at this point that she met and was inspired by Ahmed Moustafa, whose work both in his doctoral thesis and in his creation of beautiful calligraphic works, has focused on the system of proportion developed by the 10th century calligrapher Ibn Muqla and his follower Ibn Al-Bawwab. Al-Homoud needed to know the rules in order, in her words, ‘to break and build.’ The ‘break’ is the deconstruction of the calligraphic form and the creation of a system of transference from letters to numbers which lead to the intricate geometric patterns, cobweb-like in their delicacy: these are the hallmark of her work. The idea of an alpha-numeric system where letters are represented by numbers is an old one in Islam. Using the ancient form of the Semitic alphabet and known as abjad (in essence the abcd we follow in the West today where a=1, b=2, j= 3 and so on), names of God or phrases can be represented by numbers. These numbers can also form magical squares which are among the greatest achievements of Muslim mathematicians. Inspired by the notion of numbers representing letters, she focused on one aspect of mathematics, the Vedic square, which is a multiplication system based on a 9 x 9 grid developed in North India in ancient times. She explains this as follows: ‘Instead of using the numbers 1-9 in the Vedic square, I used the first nine stages in the creation of man (the human cell and how it was developed and multiplied). So the numbers would be 1, 2, 4, 8, and since a cabbalistic reduction is a vital rule of the Vedic square the fifth stage of human cell development is 16 and in the Vedic square the cabbalistic reduction is applied by adding the two numbers to create one digit. So

quenches the mind

Having majored in Sociology at King Saud University in Riyadh, Al-Homoud moved to London in 1990 where she studied design. She says with pride, ‘I am the first Saudi with an MA from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. I wanted to study and research Islamic art in a modern art college, not in isolation but within the international world of art.’

35 OASIS MAGAZINE

“There was even a period when I stopped painting for three did “Above allyears formsand of comnothing but the read. They munication relation were three the most between Theof Creator and beautiful years of my life. the creation fascinates Ime read mostThis important thethe most. dimennovels, I learnt sion that couldabout only the be history art around reachedofthrough faiththe is world, so when my I started what inspires creato paint again, I had the tivity to produce designs energy all these writwithout ofthe restriction ers in myand mind as well as of time space, away their Abdulaziz from imagery.” life events, where Ashour there is no limit for my soul to grow.” Lulwah AlHomoud

‘Despite my true love for the written language and the Arabic letter forms, I did not want to use the Arabic letters nor did I want to follow the rules of Islamic geometrical designs, I wanted to create new codes for the Arabic letters where the geometric pattern and the word become one.’

quenches the mind

OASIS MAGAZINE

16 becomes 1+6=7. The sixth stage is 32 so 3+2=5 and so on. The next stage is 46, 4+6= 10 (that’s two digits which still need to be reduced to one, so 1+0=1. That applies to the multiplications as well. ‘I was searching and trying to find my own way to connect the Creator to the creation and develop my own understanding. God communicated with man through language, but there are different languages God tried to communicate with man. There is a mathematical and visual pattern in the creation. I was more interested in the hidden order of the creation. I love calligraphy but rather than inscribing the letters the way we were taught to write or read and understand, I wanted to link the written language with the other language that appears in nature where there is a mathematical pattern and I chose the formation of the cell and its development. One of the most amazing mathematical patterns is the multiplication of the human cell, where one cell divides into two and multiplies to infinite numbers, illustrating the idea of unity and multiplicity. That is why I called my work The Language of Existence. I was trying to find a new way to understand the relationship between the Creator and the creation.’ In addition to its practical application the Vedic square also inspires the creation of designs. By joining the repeating numbers in the grid (all the 3s for example, or the 4s), a series of patterns can be created. She then combines the structure of the Vedic square with the system of proportion developed for Arabic calligraphy by Ibn Muqla. In this system each Arabic letter is written according to a set number of dots – five or seven – that are created when the angled end of the reed pen is pressed down. So how have these two systems come together? Al-Homoud explains:

‘I combined the two shapes that were used in the Islamic tradition, the square used to create visual patterns, specifically the Vedic square, and the circle that Ibn Muqla used to develop the rules of proportion. My concern here was not the dot but the shape, and superimposing the circle with the letter on the square led me to follow the numerical strings that fall under each letter. I then connected these to the Vedic square to create new codes for each letter and these create the visual pattern.’ This then is what she describes as ‘the build.’ Her early interest in structure and primary shapes – the square in particular – has taken her on a fascinating journey. She says that she was ‘terrible at maths’ as a child but through this obsession with the Vedic square she has found a way of combining geometry and mathematics with spirituality: ‘the dot is the source of all dimensions, Islamic and universal,’ she says. Al-Homoud is inspired by the medieval philosophers and anonymous mystics of the Ikhwan Al-Safa who wrote: ‘...the study of sensible geometry leads to skill in all practical art, while the study of the intelligible geometry leads to skill in the intellectual arts because this science is one of the gates through which we move to the knowledge of the essence of the soul, and that is the root of all knowledge.’ Al-Homoud goes on: ‘As I made my codes for each letter, I can now create words and use them to write the names of God.’ Each of the works exhibited is at once bold and intensely subtle as well as being a deep expression of faith.

You could spend days in Ayman Yossri’s studio reading the streams of text that bind the room horizontally – a freeform tapestry of poetry, aphorisms, names and jokes – before turning your attention to the moveable contents of this room. Hanging from the ceiling is a large leathery udder, reminiscent of the animal skins once used by Bedu families in the nearby desert to contain water. Droplets fall periodically into a bucket Yossri has placed below. Dreams lost to the waking day. On a television-screen a video plays on a loop showing a plastic fish swimming eternally against the current. Elsewhere there’s a pink Cadillac, a toy cement mixer, a sardine tin with a picture of Mona Lisa inside, Johnson & Johnson back plasters with images printed onto them, throne-like armchairs that squeak when you sit on them, curtains spraypainted with slogans, and in one corner an army of gnomes bought recently at Yossri’s local IKEA. Explanation unknown. It’s an extraordinary room, and allows a sideways yet germane introduction to Yossri’s aesthetic. Ayman Yossri is unlike the other artists in ‘Edge of Arabia’. His practice owes more to an understanding of fluxus, happenings and actionism borne out by his preference for creating a situation over producing a discrete commodity that can be hung, bought and sold. ‘I don’t want anything I make to be still. My objects must not die. Instead I want to keep them suspended for eternity between birth and death.’ Yossri embodies a different understanding of what an artist could or should be – he is closer to the artist as teacher, showman or trickster-figure. There is something Beuysian about his emphasis on conversation, conservation, informal lessons, personality and the belief that we are all artists, as evidenced by the regular stream of young friends and col-

‘Usually I wake in the afternoons, so for most of the time I am awake others are asleep. Within these films, there is a sense of permanence that I crave. The places in these films do not change, even if my setting, our setting, the world around is in a constant state of flux, the imagined environments that exist in these films remain constant.’

37 OASIS MAGAZINE

AYMAN YOSSRI DAYDBAN

He’s been a practising artist since 1989 and although he’s lived most of his life in Jeddah and identifies with Saudi Arabia he is, legally, a Palestinian with Jordanian nationality. This engenders a sense of dislocation, which in turn forms part of the backdrop to his Maharem, a piece consisting of two hundred wooden tissue boxes. On the outer surface of each are hand-printed fragments from posters of old Arabic films. The stylised painted faces, in their delivery and content, are as iconic to an Arabic audience as those of Fred Astaire or Marilyn Monroe to a Western equivalent. These films have become his life, and creating this work of art has confirmed this and memorialised it; it’s taken Yossri three years to create the tissue boxes. Together they offer a window into a world that is not only fictional but out-of-date. Yet by watching these films repeatedly and extricating them from their historical context they become more real and often more permanent than his non-fiction actuality. While the actors in these films are not really present Yossri joins them, night after night, inhabiting their world, and as he watches he cries, reaching unthinkingly for the nearest box of tissues.

quenches the mind

laborators in his studio. They’re there to drink in his way of seeing the world: it’s a playful take on life. There’s a lot of laughter in Yossri’s studio, as well as tears.

Henry: What kind of films do you like to watch? ‘Films from the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s. Mostly Egyptian films. During this time there were few other Arabic countries making films, and with no satellite television films like these were hugely prominent. They were spectacular. It helped also that you could not own them, you had to visit a theatre to see them.’

Henry: When was the last time you cried watching a film? ‘Yesterday! It was an Italian film. I don’t remember the name.’

quenches the mind

In Arabic the word for a box of tissues is maharem, which also means fragile or precious. It can be used to describe relatives you are living with such as parents, aunts, uncles or cousins – the people who live under the same roof as you and from whom it’s hard to keep secrets. With time they become like a tissue: an emotional blanket against the world outside.

OASIS MAGAZINE

Yossri wants these boxes to be functional, thus calibrating his decision to mine, the dichotomy between mass-produced industrial objects and their apparent opposite: creatively subjective artistic originals. The latter is deified and made precious while the former remains prosaic and by its nature replaceable. Yossri’s film-posters are bright, mannered and kitsch in their design. They take you immediately to a well-lit market in downtown Jeddah, or Cairo, Amman, Damascus, Aleppo or Baghdad. By placing this imagery in the elitist space of a contemporary art gallery Yossri is again setting off low artistic production against its more high-born cousin. Although Yossri’s work can appear to fire in different directions, he returns to the same set of questions using a similar methodology. At the heart of this lies his partial rejection of the finished artistic product. This explains why he insists on having chairs at his exhibitions. It’s so that people can sit and talk to him, criticise the work and enter into a dialogue about how to change it for the future.

‘Nothing I show in an exhibition is entirely finished. Instead they are simply questions. What I have in my studio is exactly the same. There are some things that have been there for five years, changing always little by little. They represent questions and by talking to people and getting an understanding of how they respond to my work I can move forward. I’m always collecting feedback. It’s at the absolute heart of my practice.’ Identity Shop, Yossri’s other contribution to ‘Edge of Arabia’ is a perfect example. He describes it as the ultimate expression of the different questions he explores in his work. On display is a process. Yossri will set up a shop where he trades identities. He says he will sell the Arabic tongue in return for other languages, identities, ideas, whatever he can get his hands on. In many ways this refers again to his life as an émigré. It’s not that people around him make him feel foreign but the idea that he was not born in Jeddah, once thought, cannot be unthought. Though you could argue that this sense of apartness grants him more leeway and makes it easier for him to exist as a marginal and slightly eccentric artist-teacher.

Henry: What are you reading now? ‘Dr. John Gray’s Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. You see everything I read is about communication. It’s the biggest problem in the world today. Communication.’

Henry: For you, what is the point of making art? ‘To create an object that levels those who look at it, temporarily. This is my ideology.’ In this sense, his life can be viewed as the single artwork that best embodies his methodology and artistic philosophy. It is both unfinished and its meaning remains gloriously open.

quenches the mind

OASIS MAGAZINE

Black and white photograph by HRH Reem Al-Faisal.

REEM AL-FAISAL Throughout history the production of art has been a panacea to loneliness. Not only that, it has provided artists and those around them with a way of communicating that is often more revealing and expressive than words or gestures. With time, making art can act as a crutch, allowing the artist to draw out parts of their character that might otherwise remain hidden. So it was with HRH Princess Reem Al-Faisal, the greatgrand-daughter of King Abdul Aziz (the founder of modern Saudi Arabia), who began taking pictures aged seven using a Canon AEI, a camera she still has. She now finds it almost impossible to imagine her life without a camera or the pictures it allows her to produce. Al-Faisalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first show took place in 1994 in Jeddah (the first public exhibition of black-and-white photography anywhere in Saudi Arabia) and she has since exhibited worldwide. She now divides her time between Paris, where her photographs are developed and where she studied photography (at SpĂŠos), Jeddah, and the wider world: her practice is predicated on both travel and a desire to document manifestations of The Divine in man and the universe.

quenches the mind

OASIS MAGAZINE

Black and white photograph by HRH Reem Al-Faisal

‘I’m generally an extremely shy person, especially in crowds,’ she explains. ‘But when I have a camera I can stand in front of a huge group, get up on a table. I do things that I would never do without the camera. It’s like I’m someone else.’ This is especially significant in the context of her work documenting ‘Nation of Islam’, an American organisation variously described as a cult, sect, or a religion in its own right. Thirteen pictures from this series shot between 1999-2001 have been selected for ‘Edge of Arabia’, including shots of ‘Savior’s Day’ 2000, a landmark event in the history of NOI and the first time those attending had prayed en masse.

Henry: So what is Nation of Islam? ‘Basically it is a mixture of Christian, Islamic and Masonic influences. They have their own mythology, they believe they come from a superior race and that the white man is the son of the devil. They also revere Wallace Fard Muhammad who they see as the reincarnation of the Prophet Muhammad. There are elements of the history of slavery bound up in there. What was so interesting was the fact they called me white. They told me I was the first “white” person who’d been allowed to photograph them.’ As Al-Faisal explained, NOI also perform valuable work combating drug-use in predominantly black ghettoes across America. Her interest in them stems from a desire to find and document photographically a truly American interpretation of Islam. This touches upon one of the key themes running through her work: the way heterogeneous communities around the world respond to the singular message of Islam.

Although she is a devout Muslim she would never try and correct someone religiously. As a photographer she does not believe it is her place to do such a thing, something in itself indicative of the intellectual integrity that runs throughout her practice.

Henry: You mentioned earlier that having a camera round your neck emboldens you, has it ever got you into trouble? ‘Absolutely. From the very beginning when I was photographing in the port of Jeddah, from the age of 24, every day when I returned to the house my father would joke, ‘Someone will push you into the sea one day if you carry on like that.’ And he was right, in the sense that some Saudis strongly disapprove of the use of a camera in a public place. ‘I’ve photographed in Saudi Arabia for nearly ten years now, on and off, and it is difficult. Culturally, it’s unusual to photograph outside. You must be prepared to fight every step of the way. People either want to ask you questions, stop you or hurt you. In Saudi Arabia I would say that to come away with one or two photographs shot outside you need to work for maybe thirteen hours.’ ‘So it’s very hard to locate the boundary between what is culturally acceptable and what is not. This is certainly a problem I’ve faced. Cultural taboo changes with time and place. So I’m constantly adapting. Wherever I go as a photographer, one person might be against me, the next will defend me. Both of these people are as Saudi as each other. From a distance you have no idea which is which.’

Originally in Saudi Arabia photographers were referred to as ‘aks-in, meaning, simply, reflection. This makes sense. While a painter or sculptor has the ability to create something out of nothing, a photographer merely reflects an existent environment. However in recent years some Saudis have begun to use the word musawwirin to describe photographers. Herein lies part of the problem. ‘So when I was taking photographs on hajj and a group of them began to stone me, they shouted “musawwir!” They said I would go to hell because of these photographs. This happened in 2003, at Jebel Rahma – the Mount of Mercy, ironically. Half of the crowd was attacking me, half was on my side.’

Henry: How did you defend yourself? ‘In a situation like that you don’t try and defend yourself. You run. I had all the papers and permissions but just then they meant very little. What’s interesting was the variety of opinions and views I described earlier. Half of this crowd was with me, the others were against me. The Saudi character is hard to define. For you, being English, it’s much easier. The English have been English for centuries so their identity is more concrete. Saudi is different. Our nation has advanced a great deal in a short space of time. My father would tell me about walking through Riyadh at night holding a gaslight. Can you believe that?’ Although it might be tempting, from a distance, to imagine that some of the difficulties Al-Faisal faces stem from the fact that she is a woman, it’s actually easier and safer to take pictures outside in Saudi Arabia as a woman. Al-Faisal has heard of men who have been beaten up for taking pictures in the street. Rather than feeling restricted by her gender, the princi-

‘Yes. For me Islamic Art is anything made by a Muslim artist that is sacred, from an Islamic point of view. Art that is an illumination of a path to God. Islamic art leads towards the absolute, not the ego. So I reject the idea of the artist as a supreme creator who uses tools to create artwork. God is the Creator, not the artist. The artist is a tool, and without aiming to perfect themselves, sublimate their soul and discipline their ego, their work ends up being a reflection not of the Divine, but of their ego.’ Islamic Art is also predicated on the use and influence of light. You can see this in its architecture and calligraphy. With photography – itself derived from the Greek phos and graphé meaning, literally, ‘drawing with light’ – Al-Faisal feels she has found her ideal form of expression. She also likes the fact that this medium limits the amount of ‘her’ that appears in her work, something she feels strongly about. ‘If someone was to view my work and think to themselves, “these photographs reflect this woman’s life as a Saudi princess taking photographs around the world, this is her early period, her late period, her…” And so on, then I have failed.’

Henry: Surely your photographs of the Nation of Islam are a direct account of your experience at that conference, what you saw as a result of the access you were granted. Are you not being too severe on yourself in gauging the success of these pictures like that? ‘No. I believe that I am just a tool. I don’t think of myself as an artist – I feel much closer to the artisan in the sense that I’m interested only in perfecting my craft.’ Part of this stance on the way people interpret her work is born of Al-Faisal’s experience as a female Saudi artist exhibiting internationally. Again and again Western audiences have tried to find evidence in her work to suggest that she is attacking Saudi society or that she is a feminist in the Western understanding of the term. ‘Once they realise that I am neither they tend to ignore me. I have no time for the Western feminine ideal. But you see as a devout Muslim woman I am already a feminist, in the nonWestern sense. The Western feminine ideal stems from the Christian tradition – so for them, whether they acknowledge it or not, the ideal woman is Mary. She’s a virgin and she’s divine. Women take that as their point of reference. But this archetypal vision of what a woman should be does not allow for the humanity of a woman. It sets her up on a pedestal. She cannot make mistakes or be a woman in the wholehearted, vivacious sense of the word. We, on the other hand, have multiple references to women from the time of the Prophet Muhammad who were not like Mary, women who were strong, active and powerful, yet feminine at the same time.

quenches the mind

Part of the problem faced by Saudi photographers is etymological. In Arabic the word musawwir means someone who creates things. Al-Musawwir is also one of the 99 names of God – God the Creator of beauty, the Shaper, the Bestower of forms, the One Who Fashions the world. Yet in a different context musawwirin means those who make false idols, and, as a number of recognised hadiths make clear, on the Day of Judgement these people will go to hell.

Henry: Would you describe your work as Islamic Art?

OASIS MAGAZINE

“I believe that I am just a tool. I don’t think of myself as an artist – I feel much closer to the artisan in the sense that I’m interested only in perfecting my craft.” Reem Al-Faisal

pal inhibition she knows stems from her religion – she will do something only if she knows it is permitted by Islam. This is more important than whether or not it is restricted by society or tradition: being a photographer is certainly not a role that traditional Saudi society ascribes to women.

Take Aisha, wife of the Prophet, who commanded the Muslim army at the Battle of the Camel, who was politically active. Then you have Khadeeja, the first wife of the Prophet, who was a wealthy businesswoman twenty years older than him. Then you have Fatima, who was equally strong. The list goes on. I imagine very few in the West know about these women.’

quenches the mind

Henry: Sure, but are the stories of these women at the forefront of how young girls are educated in Saudi Arabia today?

OASIS MAGAZINE

‘Well, to answer that you need an understanding of the history of Saudi women over the last seventy years. In Riyadh during the 1940s, the sisters of King Abdul Aziz held their own salons. The King even referred to himself as “the brother of Noura.” That’s how proud he was of the women in his family. In rural areas women would dress colourfully. They’d work outside. Yet with the discovery of oil, Saudi society began to change dramatically. One of the consequences was a degree of confusion, and in that confusion, women got lost. The reaction of most men to this dramatic change was to impose more conservative moral codes on their homes, meaning their wives and their daughters were kept inside. Now I think the pendulum is swinging back. We have gone from a traditional society, to a nun society, and I think in the next two generations we will end up somewhere in between.’

Henry: What was the first piece of art that really mattered to you? ‘A poem by Al-Ma’ari. He’s an 11th century poet from northern Syria. He was blind from a young age and became extremely bitter. His poetry, basically, was existentialist. For much of his life he was angry against God for making him blind, then he realised that there was no point in being angry like this, that he had other skills. So he wrote his famous thesis which is a voyage through the heavens during which he meets the different prophets. Perhaps this is an inspiration for Dante’s Divine Comedy. Al-Ma’ari is a poet and a philosopher. He tells us to tread softly on the earth, because it is made up of human remains. He talks about the permanence and futility of human beings. I’m also deeply inspired by Sufi poetry, as well as Shakespeare, Blake and Donne, or the work of Al-Hallaj, Sa’adi, and the story of Qays and Layla – the 7th century precursor of Romeo and Juliet.’

Henry: How would you describe your work? ‘I don’t know. I’m neither traditional, nor modern. Nor contemporary, nor old-fashioned for that matter. Perhaps the best thing to do is say my work is a sign of love.’

Henry: Love of what? ‘God. My only artistic ambition is for someone to look at my body of work and say, “Isn’t He beautiful.”’

Black and white photographs by HRH Reem Al-Faisal.

ALI AL-RUZAIZA

This was in the early 1950s, just as Saudi Arabia was beginning to feel the effect of the discovery of vast quantities of crude oil beneath its surface. Meteoric modernization was not far off. Art education has changed immeasurably since then and it’s unlikely that there are any schools in twenty-first century Saudi Arabia with a lone paintbrush kept under lock and key at night. Born in 1947 Al-Ruzaiza is now, by his own admission, one of the old men of Saudi art. He is highly respected and much loved. Attending a Riyadh art event with him is a slow affair: it is impossible for him to walk more than two or three yards before another old friend or colleague comes up to greet him. As well as being popular within Saudi, his work is in the collection of an impressive range of former heads of state including George Bush Senior, Vladimir Putin and Jacques Chirac. Al-Ruzaiza’s work is dominated by concerns relating to traditional local architecture and design. In some respects his output can be seen as an attempt to document, record and codify the physical manifestations of local Najd culture as it once was. His house, where we meet, is living testament to this – though he does not call it a house, for him it is a village. ‘It has taken me more than 20 years to build,’ he explains. We have entered through a wide door set within a low-slung circular niche covered in traditional Najdi designs. Past lush grass we arrive in his majlis with chairs and tables set around the perimeter. ‘I have made everything you see here. The tiles on the floor, the tables, light-stands, the frames as well as the pictures themselves. Even the chairs we are sitting in now.’

Henry: Is it finished? ‘No!’ He smiles. ‘It is never finished. If it is finished it means my creativity has run dry. I’m working on some new furniture now, as well as the new studio I am building now.’

43 MAGAZINE OASIS OASIS MAGAZINE

Because there was only one paintbrush in his school it was locked away each night. But Al-Ruzaiza, aged seven, wanted to paint at home as well as at school. One night he decided to do something about this. He began by prising out from a crayon its stick of colour before grinding it into a powder and mixing it with water. Soon he had a paint-like paste. Then he cut a clump of hair from his head and trimmed into it a triangular point. Next, he found an old can and removed a strip of tin that he used to secure the hair to the hollowed-out husk of the crayon. Al-Ruzaiza had a brush. Using his homemade paint he made a picture. The next day at school he showed his teacher the painting he had made, only for the teacher to accuse him of stealing the school’s only paintbrush.

mind the mind quenches quenches the

There was only one paintbrush in the school where Ali AlRuzaiza studied as a child in a small, sleepy village 200 kilometres outside Riyadh. It’s in Al-Washim region; Al-Washim means tattoo. This village, he explained, was like a tattoo on the flesh of the desert. The walls of his house were made from mud-brick topped off with jaunty crenellations, or shurafa, and were thick enough to insulate against the heat of the summer. The only drawback, he explained, was having to patch them with dollops of mud when it rained.

This new studio will announce a new chapter in his life, a new body of work and a new style, he says. ‘I am more than 60 now, and have at last reached a stage in my life where I have no real problems. This new studio is bigger than before, and I’m excited by the work I’ll make there, and how it will respond to the space.’

quenches the mind

For most of his artistic life Al-Ruzaiza has attempted to forge and then re-forge a connection between his vision of the past and the possibility of the future. Like many in Saudi Arabia there are times when he fears the two have grown apart. AlRuzaiza also feels a connection to the land and worries that the next generation are growing up without this. It’s significant that when asked what he would do if he wasn’t an artist he said he’d be a farmer.

OASIS MAGAZINE

‘But people now are taking stock of their past. You can see this in the village I grew up in. Most of the people there have moved away to the city and become rich. They might still build luxurious guesthouses in the villages where they go on holiday during Ramadan, but all this time the old buildings were falling away. Now it is different, and they are spending money on repairing these old houses. They see this as their heritage and they want to preserve it.’ As a young man Al-Ruzaiza left his village in order to train as an art teacher in Riyadh. These were formative years, and it was during this time that he saw the first painting that truly moved him: a copy of Géricault’s The Raft of Medusa (1819) painted by one of his Iraqi teachers. From that moment he knew he wanted to be an artist. ‘And the teachers then were better than now – the teachers at the high end. They were from Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan. And now, although there is better education for all Saudi children, there are fewer teachers from around the region to help those who want to make a career as artists. This should change. ‘Look, for me, something’s wrong. Right now in Saudi Arabia we need more professional art galleries, more people who understand the meaning behind art – not just people who buy art for the sake of appearances. We also need more art critics in newspapers or on television. We still have some catching up to do. Artists in Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, they have a much longer tradition of making art and talking about it. And although we have advanced very fast, we are still not at their level.’ For Al-Ruzaiza the problem is that few Saudi artists go to train abroad.

“Look, for me, something’s wrong. Right now in Saudi Arabia we need more professional art galleries, more people who understand the meaning behind art – not just people who buy art for the sake of appearances. We also need more art critics in newspapers or on television. We still have some catching up to do. Artists in Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, they have a much longer tradition of making art and talking about it. And although we have advanced very fast, we are still not at their level.” Ali Al-Ruzaiza

Henry: You studied in Rome for some time, didn’t you? ‘Yes. Between 1974-79. And this changed my life.’ He looks visibly moved by the memory of this. ‘You see, apart from a few trips to Kuwait or Qatar, this was the first time I’d left Saudi Arabia. So all the time studying art in Saudi I’d been looking at books, examining photos of work by artists like Leonardo, Michelangelo. Monet, Picasso, Chagall. Often they were in black and white. So of course when I got to Rome I could see all these works in the flesh. It was the best thing! Being in Italy then was paradise for me. I saw many things. I explored all over Europe and felt my mind was opened.’ At first he produced works that looked like something an Italian art student might have made. But with time he became more confident and would incorporate motifs from his village and the life in Saudi Arabia he had left temporarily. On his return he began to work in the Ministry of Education, and it’s this background as an art teacher that keeps him connected to some of the younger artists of today, including several featured in ‘Edge of Arabia’. He feels they are brave, and that Saudi Arabia needs these kinds of young artists more than ever before. Also significant in his analysis is that there is a new generation of young Saudis with an appreciation of art that their parents did not have. But what really impresses him about the next generation of Saudi artists is the way they’re prepared to take their work outside the country and enter it independently for international competitions. This did not happen previously. For example, Ahmed Mater and Abdulnasser Gharem both starred in the recent Sharjah Biennial 2007. Not only is this brave, Al-Ruzaiza explained, but it will allow their art to develop faster. He’s proud to be part of an exhibition that is in many ways testament to that ambition born of artistic independence.

Surrounded by drawing books and crayons, as a child AlDaham was encouraged to develop his talent. The man who would have the greatest artistic influence on Sameer Al-Daham was his teacher Ali Al-Ruzaiza (who was with us throughout the interview). ‘Ali Ruzaiza has certainly influenced me more than any other artist,’ Al-Daham explains. ‘He imbued me with a true love of art. He was the one always encouraging me, motivating me, and over time we have become very close. Even our families now are good friends.’

Untitled (acrylic on canvas) by Sameer Al-Daham, 2007.

SAMEER AL-DAHAM We meet at his house in the outskirts of Riyadh, where Sameer Al-Daham grew up. It’s night-time and we spread ourselves over the carpeted floor of what will soon become his studio. But this studio is unusual. Just then it has no walls, no furniture, no physical form beyond a raised dais of smooth concrete with lines demarcating different rooms, doorways and windows. In the middle of this Al-Daham has set up his television, a carpet and a series of cushions on which we now recline. The space is lit by floodlights set around the wall of his garden and the night-air is warm – room-temperatureish – making the whole thing feel like the set for a slightly surreal television soap. You look at the sky and for a moment it’s hard to tell whether it’s real or not.

Although they have quite different styles, Al-Daham and AlRuzaiza share an artistic vernacular. The pair of them are also well connected to the body that does a great deal to promote, cultivate and patronise the arts in Saudi Arabia: The Ministry of Culture and Information. For the last four years Al-Daham has worked in the Ministry as the nation’s Art Advisor, the job that Abdulaziz Ashour once had. So he spends his time organising exhibitions of Saudi art in embassies around the world; setting up the Saudi Arabian Society of Art; or he’ll be working to get more Saudi art displayed within government buildings. AlDaham is also a journalist and writes, as you’d expect, about Saudi art. So with this longstanding, circumspect understanding of art being produced in the kingdom, it’s significant that Al-Daham thinks artists today, as well as being brave, have far more opportunities than he did twenty years ago. ‘Before, there were hardly any galleries, no exhibitions, no sponsors for these exhibitions, and very little media coverage for artists. Back then it certainly required greater effort to be an artist because, like me, you might find yourself forced to make work without any prospect of being able to show it to the public. A good example of this new opportunity is the fact that although I’ve been painting without break for the last twenty years, I’m having my first solo show only this year. I also think it’s important for artists here to study abroad, as we don’t have a Fine Art academy to train professional artists.’

Al-Daham’s paintings, inspired by figurative reality, are dominated by outsized geometric abstractions. These are generally flat and angular, so it’s only up close that you understand something of their depth. The paint is thick, with each surface a testament to countless decisions and corrections made, undone then remade. His palette is fresh without feeling exotic or escapist. Usually within Al-Daham’s canvases you can make out figures or buildings, each one delineated by regular rectangular marks. Mark-making is clearly important to him, and it’s through these marks that he distils an array of complex shapes, dimensions and narrative layers into uniform channels or blocks of paint.

Henry: But when you see the work of some of the younger artists today, are you at all tempted to follow their lead and explore new artistic mediums such as video art, installation or performance? Do you think one day there may be a more conceptual underpinning to your work?

Henry: Why do you make art?

‘Maybe. It depends on my feeling.’

‘Because I have no choice,’ he says. He’s a tall man and smiles easily. That night he’s wearing a fawn-coloured flatcap. ‘I was born with this talent and I have to use it. It’s very simple. I’m one of the luckiest people alive. From when I was very young my family have supported me with this. They realised there was something different about me, especially my father. Because of this they made sure I grew up in a creative environment.’

Henry: And what is the feeling behind your work now?

Now aged 53, Al-Daham sees himself as a link between the old generation and the new.

‘I’m not sure. It’s always my environment that dictates what I paint. Because I haven’t lived in a time of war there is no war in my paintings. Perhaps this helps explain the mood of some of my paintings. The figures I use are figures I see, in reality. In this sense my work is simply a mirror to my surroundings.’

MANAL AL-DOWAYAN ‘My ambition as an artist? To create something that lasts beyond me. Not in the sense of being famous, you know, but in the sense of allowing my thoughts and feelings to persist. Each photograph I take is like a part of my soul, and I’d like that to outlive me. Having said that, it’s important you understand that I’m not at all interested in the cult of me.’

quenches the mind

However that’s where we need to start. Manal Al-Dowayan and the conditions in which she works are just as significant as the images she creates. It would be a solecism to pigeonhole her simply as a Saudi Female Photographer. Al-Dowayan has spent most of her life living in a semi-cocooned camp in the Eastern Province near the Persian Gulf. It’s a part of the country through which, historically, there has been relatively little traffic, and has nothing like the cosmopolitan demographic of the Hijaz, for example.

OASIS MAGAZINE

She has spent her life near the sea working for, or being around people who work for, the largest oil company in the world. Within this camp the rules are different to the rest of Saudi Arabia. For starters, women can drive. Equally, few feel the social pressure to veil. There are also many women in full-time employment: this company has been employing Saudi women since the 1940s. So the cultural milieu in which Al-Dowayan has spent most of her life is a diverse mixture of Saudi Arabian, ex-pat and Eastern Province influences. This informs her work as much as it defines Al-Dowayan herself. For ‘Edge of Arabia’ Al-Dowayan has contributed 13 portraits of local women. Each has been photographed wearing a headscarf or veil, and is holding near their face an object redolent of a traditionally masculine profession. The lighting is sympathetic, their make-up has been expertly applied; so the power in each piece lies in its visual dissonance and the pronounced tonal contrast. ‘And this sense of extreme polarity also relates to where I live. It’s about the way my lifestyle inside the camp is quite different to when I go outside.’

Henry: Can you tell me why you photograph your subjects in such a flattering way – at times it’s as if you’re pandering to a quite masculine understanding of femininity where women should always be pretty and blemish-free? ‘I’ve been asked about this many times. Personally, I like beauty. I don’t see ugliness so much. Some photographers look for ugliness in order to make their images more real. I like images that are pleasing, and if you’re going to put one of my images on your wall, I want the woman in it to look her best. Also, I shoot in studio-like set-ups so it would be overly contrived for me to try and recreate dirt or ugliness in what is essentially a clean setting. Also, if I’m honest, all my models are Saudi women and they would kill me if I asked them to look ugly! They are being immortalised so they don’t want the world to see wrinkles, greasy skin or spots.’

After completing her studies in the Eastern Province (at state public schools rather than private ones) Al-Dowayan went to Boston to study Computer Information Systems. It was here that she began to fall in love with taking pictures: not the welllit, high-end photographs she produces today but more prosaic snaps. She liked the sense of documentation, the finality that seemed to go with that, as well as the idea that you were condensing fractions of your past into something tangible. Soon after returning from Boston she got a scholarship from the British Council to study a computer-related course in London. ‘So I told myself I have to make the most of this year in London. I wanted to use all my spare time. I decided to concentrate on photography and soon found a darkroom in an old nursery school in London. But what got the whole thing going was the exhibition I took part in towards the end of that year in London. Rather than show an anthology of my work I designed a concept. It was simple: I photographed some friends in Hyde Park showing them veiled and unveiled. It’s work I’d never exhibit in Saudi Arabia and was designed for a specific audience at a particular moment in time. This was just at the beginning of the war [the invasion of Iraq in 2003] when I felt that anti-Arab sentiment around the world was growing.’ The work was well-received and was included in a further exhibition in Spain. It was the first time anyone had engaged with Al-Dowayan’s work in this way and it allowed her to think about her practice differently. Two years later, in 2005, she held her first exhibition in Saudi Arabia. The timing of Al-Dowayan becoming immersed in photography was ideal. Because of a series of factors – including vastly improved internet access, spread of satellite television, the accession of King Abdullah to the throne in 2005, the art-market boom in neighbouring Dubai, and a new desire to modernise culturally rather than Westernise, factors that have influenced every artist in ‘Edge of Arabia’ in some way – Al-Dowayan was working during a time of transition in Saudi art. The range of artworks it was generally possible to display in a Saudi art gallery in 2005, for example, was broader than it would have been in, say, 1990. Contemporaneous to this, attitudes towards women in Saudi Arabia re-entered a state of flux. Al-Dowayan’s recent work deals explicitly with the role of women in Saudi Arabia and there’s no doubt that it would have been harder to exhibit this during the 1990s. This is not so much due to the threat of censorship from above, be it by a religious or state authority – the Western model of censorship does not apply here – but self-censorship.

‘Maybe it’s because of the speech that King Abdullah made on his accession, I don’t know, but it seems that in the present climate people are ready to see my work and respond to it without being hostile. Before, it was in some ways taboo to discuss the issues in my work. But our media has become more open recently, regardless of what you read in the West. There are forums for dialogue now such as The National Dialogue. There are different discussion cafés, or NGOs that allow Saudis to discuss how we can improve our country. So this present culture has allowed people to communicate new ideas without being labelled reformist in a dangerous sense. Yet these discussions can often end up being slightly elitist. They’re for people who speak well, you know? Images are more demotic. That’s why my photographs are important.’ Al-Dowayan’s identity as a Saudi woman dominates her work. The artists who have influenced her the most are also female: Madeha Ajroosh and Shirin Neshat. Seeing the work of the Iranian-born Neshat had a huge impact on her, particularly Neshat’s piece Speechless (1996). When she saw it Al-Dowayan was overwhelmingly relieved – someone else was ploughing a similar furrow. From that moment it became easier in her mind to explore the conceptual underpinning to her work.

Henry: Your photographs are often compared to those of Shirin Neshat. Do you find this restrictive? ‘No. It’s flattering. Now if someone was to say I was copying her, that would be annoying. If you look at my images it’s clear that I’m not. That’s why I’m happy to say that Neshat’s one of my inspirations. One of the biggest differences between us is that my work relates to my physical and social setting whereas she is based in New York and her work explores her memory of Iran. My audience is Saudi, not international. I mean, if there are people beyond Saudi who engage with it that’s fine, but the only thing I aspire to right now is recognition within Saudi Arabia.’

Henry: What’s the future of contemporary art in Saudi Arabia – what would change if I returned to the country ten years from now? ‘I think you’d find that a cultural centre had been built. That’s one thing. You see there is today a fresh emphasis on the importance of art. Culture is valued increasingly, and art is perceived as a crucial part of culture. It’s become a tool with which to communicate to the outside world. Middle Eastern countries are finally beginning to understand the value of public relations, and engaging at a level where everyone can engage, that of culture. Putting on an exhibition is a lovely, peaceful way to communicate with the rest of the world. In my opinion it’s more effective than buying adverts to try and convince the world that you are nice people. So there is that aspect to Saudi art right now. But the future of Saudi art depends on whether enough Saudis start to collect art. I think this is happening already, especially as more and more people see a work of art as an investment as well as a thing of beauty. So perhaps the big difference in ten years’ time will be the advent of the full-time artist in Saudi Arabia.’

47 OASIS MAGAZINE

During the first television interview given by King Abdullah following his accession to the throne in August 2005 the King told ABC News that: ‘I believe strongly in the rights of women.’ He added later that he believed Saudi women would be driving in the near future. In an earlier speech he had talked about the importance of getting more Saudi women into the workforce.

quenches the mind

‘Within every Saudi citizen there is a system of censorship. It is engrained. I cannot produce an artwork without thinking ten times about how society, as I understand it, will react to it. If I think that it will create ill-feeling for me and my family then I will not show it. It’s very simple. Often I come up with an idea, photograph it and develop it, before scrapping it and going back to the beginning because it does not pass the censor in my head.’

arts & culture

quenches the mind

ABDULNASSER GHAREM

OASIS MAGAZINE

Several times now I’ve started a profile by saying that this particular artist is unlike any other in the exhibition, that they are in some way apart. Any description of Abdulnasser Gharem must begin with a similar disclaimer. Gharem is different for a number of reasons, notably the way he combines his life as a conceptual artist with a career as a Major in the Saudi Arabian Army. Gharem sees his studio as the street (or wherever he locates an artistic opportunity in the surrounding landscape). Critically, he is someone who understands the value of contingency. It’s something he positions at the heart of his practice. Gharem is canny, clever and daring; an individual who is switched on politically and socially. Again: he is unlike the other artists in this exhibition, to the extent that there’s no longer any need to imagine such a thing as a ‘typical’ Saudi contemporary artist in the early 21st century. Born in 1973 in Khamis Mushait, near Abha, Gharem studied at Al-Miftaha Artists’ Village along with Ahmed Mater. Six years apart in age with Mater the younger, these two are close. For some time they lived in the same studio-apartment in Abha and would talk for hours about what they were making, why and how. When you see them around each other you understand immediately both their camaraderie as artists as well as the intellectual respect they have for one another, though it’s worth pointing out that Mater has been practising for longer. Picasso once said of the early days of Cubism that he and Braque were roped together like two mountaineers. With time artistic differences drew them apart, and while in a similar sense it’s possible that one day Mater and Gharem will go their separate ways artistically, for the last five years their friendship has been invaluable. When the history of 21st century Saudi art comes to be written this will be one of its most significant friendships. Only two Saudi artists were selected for the prestigious Sharjah Biennial 2007: Ahmed Mater and Abdulnasser Gharem. Gharem’s contribution comprised his photographic documentation of Flora and Fauna, a recent performance in the centre of Abha. For this he wrapped in a sheet of plastic one of the Cornocarpus Erectus trees running down the main street and stepped inside this chrysalis where he could stay for many hours, surviving on the oxygen generated by the tree. It was a neat exploration of how man must exist in equilibrium with his environment. These trees, a regular sight in Abha, with their crowns clipped and rounded like scoops of pistachio ice-cream, were imported recently from Australia. They were known to stay green all year round and produce impressive amounts of oxygen, but the authorities did not predict the effect they would have on local flora and fauna. It has been disastrous. Unlike local trees the roots of the Cornocarpus Erectus run horizontally, stretching up to 100 metres from each trunk. The root-balls of local trees such as willows or cottonwoods run vertically and as a result many have died over the past decade. Gharem wanted to draw attention to this as well as question in a broader sense the role of technocrats in environmentally-sensitive urban design.

Flora & Fauna (photograph of an installation) by Abdulnasser Gharem, 2007.

Henry: What kind of reaction did you get to this piece – you mentioned earlier this was the first time anything like this had happened in Abha? ‘Sure. People thought I was crazy. But they wanted to know more. Their minds are not closed so they came over to ask about it. When they understood it, they liked it.’

Henry: If you had the power would you remove all the Cornocarpus Erectus trees from Abha? ‘Directly. But what’s more important are the lessons for the

future. Our architects and planners need to consider the environment more carefully in their designs. Our technology needs to accelerate in this sense. We need a philosophical analysis of the relationship between the technological and the natural. You can see this especially when you look at our water situation. It’s not good. More and more of our wells are drying up so we need to conserve more water as well as pollute less.’ As Gharem explains this we are driving away from Abha in a GMC-made Sports Utility Vehicle. It is one of the largest such vehicles in Saudi Arabia and I shudder to think what kind of fuel consumption it has. Surely, I ask, there’s a contradiction between what he drives and what he’s just said?

‘Yes and no. It’s about appearances. I am an officer in the army. I have a wife and kids, and with a big car like this you become, in the eyes of the community, a big person. You have prestige, status and wasta [influence]. This is important. It gets me into places that would be off-limits to a civilian in a small car. Once I’m in these places I can make art. You see, in this country security is important, and the judgements people make about the risk you present are based on appearances – how you dress, the way you speak and of course your car.’

quenches the mind

As he explains this the valley on either side of the road attenuates slightly. We are drawing close to the Tihama Strip: a slither of coast that continues down to Yemen and is derived geographically from the African landmass to the west. It is more wild here, and quite different to central Saudi Arabia. We pass a Tihama ‘Flower Man’ who stands motionless by the side of the road. His gaze is dreamy and indistinct as we pass him by. His features are lean and polished, and on his head there is an exquisite garland of flowers, hence the soubriquet. It makes him look quite surreal, like a character out of Midsummer’s Night Dream were it to be staged in the Tihama Strip.

OASIS MAGAZINE

‘You know how some people like to say there was no art in Saudi Arabia until fifty years ago? They’re wrong. Look at those flowers in that man’s hair. That’s indigenous Saudi art,’ Gharem explains. ‘Not someone standing in a studio painting at an easel.’ Not far from here Gharem executed one of his site-specific performances. ‘For Manzoa I went to Jizan, and found the poorest section of this town. The houses I could see had no roofs, and sprayed onto each in red was the word, “Manzoa.” It means this place is about to be demolished. Or in one sense that the thing has already gone. All the houses in this village had been purchased and were about to be destroyed. The people there had been given money in return but they weren’t educated people and now they had spent all their money on qat [the addictive narcotic extremely popular in nearby Yemen]. Once they’d run out of money they began to sell their roofs and their pipes to buy more qat. Then the government removed the electricity from these “Manzoa” houses, leaving only the mosque with power. So now they take their electricity from the mosque. I went there and decided to paint “AlManzoa” onto my shirt. I spent the day there with them. They liked me. They opened their hearts to me. We played football and I moved among them, like a ghost almost. Al-Manzoa. At night this village became the saddest place I have ever known. The children start to cry and howl. There’s no food. The fathers sit there chewing qat. They have no money. They will soon have no home. On their souls I could have written “Manzoa.”’

Henry: And how did they react when you explained you were an artist? ‘Oh they were happy. They helped me take pictures, they took part, they enjoyed it. At the same time, you know, they would be interested in anything. They were like leaves being carried along in the gutter so when they reach the drain they will hang onto anything.’

‘You know what was at the centre of this piece? Chance. I improvised the whole thing. Always rethinking it. And this is so important for me. I have no studio so my studio is wherever I can find people. When I see the opportunity I go. That is my way of thinking about art.’ In Chance and Necessity, the Nobel Laureate and French biochemist Jacques Monod argued that only with ‘absolute chance’ – i.e. coincidence, contingency, the collision that occurs when two unrelated sequences join and there is someone able to take advantage of this – do you find the possibility of ‘absolute newness.’ Gharem is that someone. In a similar sense by staging their ‘Shattah’ group exhibition in 2004 at Jeddah Atelier, Mater, Gharem and others achieved a breakthrough. ‘Shattah’ means to be broken up or disembodied. There were browned chewing-gum husks presented using proto-museum curation, or graves made out of fast-food containers. As a series of artistic objects it was unlike anything shown before in Saudi Arabia, with the possible exception of Mahdi Al-Jeraibi’s Dialectics in 2000, also in Jeddah Atelier.

Henry: Tell me about the experience of staging ‘Shattah’. ‘We were a group living in Al-Miftaha Artists’ Village and we had similar interests and ways of thinking about art. We did a lot of dreaming there, a lot of inquiring. And at that time getting books or articles about contemporary art was so hard. Not like now. But we gathered as much as possible and shared it amongst ourselves. This exhibition was a result of the new way of seeing that came out of that. The owner of the gallery wasn’t happy with it though because we had no paintings. He was worried that he’d make no money so we had to really persuade him to let the exhibition go ahead. Then we designed a catalogue and the printers refused to print it. They saw what was inside and said we were crazy. So we asked someone with a connection to the owner of the printers to change this man’s mind. Finally they agreed to do it. ‘Now for the exhibition itself, usually in Saudi Arabia these are opened officially by a dignitary. We chose to change the rules. So we sent out invitations that simply stated the time it began, the address and the artists involved. Then Ahmed [Mater] and Ashraf [Fayadh] did great work on the internet making sure everyone knew about the exhibition and 400 people turned up for the first night. There were members of the royal family, actors, writers, all the people connected to cultural life in Jeddah. The following night the same 400 people came back! There were reviews in all the major newspapers, there were television crews there. It was a great event, really.’

Henry: How did people react to the work? ‘They liked it. Not many of them understood it but everybody wanted to understand it. That’s important. The day after the opening we had secretaries from the offices of different princes calling us up and asking for explanations of certain pieces.’

Henry: Did anyone buy the work? ‘No… No way.’

Henry: Does that bother you? ‘Not so much. Let me tell you something. You know about the ostrich with its head in the sand, and how when you are a child this is used as an allegory for someone who is oldfashioned and afraid of change?’ Henry: Sure.

For Gharem and other like-minded innovators the future of the Saudi artist does not involve a man isolated in a studio, static before an easel with a palette round his thumb, and, metaphorically at least, a beret in place of a traditional headscarf. Instead the artist is a man or woman who can recognise contingency and fashion it to his or her advantage. This artist moves among the people remixing social situations in order to question them, playfully. They are not there to protest, or create beauty for the sake of beauty. There is instead an aesthetic charge to be found in the reality of the processes they perform. In the mould of a Marcel Duchamp or Maurizio Cattelan, Gharem shifts shape continually. One moment an army major in an SUV, the next an artist with MANZOA daubed across his shirt, he is the ostrich with his head in the sand. While people around him may be confused by what he is doing – perhaps they’ll laugh at him, stand back in bemusement or tut and say what he’s doing is not right – with his head in the sand he can hear what’s coming on. What’s more, when it comes, Gharem will be ready.

quenches the mind

Abdulnasser Gharem represents the past, present and future of Saudi contemporary art. He began his career producing technically impressive watercolour paintings which he continues to make in order to fund his more innovative artistic experiments, yet over the last eight years he has adapted to the dramatic broadening of his artistic horizons. What is so impressive is the way he has responded to the inherent challenge posed by Western contemporary art. Rather than imitate the most recent parts of this, or dream of leaving Saudi Arabia to make art abroad, Gharem has internalised its methodology and, with time, he’s colonised it. Much like Ahmed Mater the work he produces now is rooted absolutely in its (and his) geographic and social context. As he puts it: ‘The one thing I fear is running out of ideas, and this will happen only if I leave the country, or I stop talking to people.’ So his work represents a commentary and artistic engagement with his surroundings rather than a solipsistic critique.

OASIS MAGAZINE

“I’m fascinated by this, by what happens when a traditional belief or superstition that you’ve learnt when you’re young is superseded by scientific rationality. How do you react to that? How long does it take you to adjust your point of view? At what point do you decide to modernise? Is it equivalent to a rejection of your childhood? It reminds me of how I used to think about art. In a similar sense when some people see my work they laugh and say it’s “crazy,” or “that’s not art.” But others, they see it and later they begin to change the way they think.” Abdulnasser Gharem

‘Well, that’s what I learnt when I was young. But later I found out why the ostrich puts his head in the sand. It’s to hear what’s coming far off in the distance. The ostrich is not stupid. It has an impressive understanding of sound transmission. When I heard this I had to revise the story I was told as a child. And I’m fascinated by this, by what happens when a traditional belief or superstition that you’ve learnt when you’re young is superseded by scientific rationality. How do you react to that? How long does it take you to adjust your point of view? At what point do you decide to modernise? Is it equivalent to a rejection of your childhood? It reminds me of how I used to think about art. In a similar sense when some people see my work they laugh and say it’s “crazy,” or “that’s not art.” But others, they see it and later they begin to change the way they think.’

NOHA AL-SHERIF Operating mostly by night from the roof of a block of flats in downtown Jeddah, Noha Al-Sherif is one of Saudi Arabia’s youngest female sculptors. Though it’s rare to find female sculptors anywhere in the world, as she explains, not just in Saudi. The physicality of sculpture often makes this medium more appealing to men.

quenches the mind

The rooftop platform where she works is littered with chisels, axes, hammers, bags of cement, marble dust, blocks of clay cloaked in plastic and the workmanlike paraphernalia of her profession. Beyond the parapet is a valley of straight lines bound by a horizon of sky and sea. There are no curves here – none other than the satellite dishes or the bending forms of Al-Sherif’s sculptures. There’s an apposite link here between the curvature in her work and the lack of this in the traffic jam of perpendiculars that makes up her local landscape. Also significant is the city where she works. Jeddah is famous for being the Saudi Arabian capital of public sculpture.

OASIS MAGAZINE

Thanks in part to Mohamed Said Farsi, the city’s pioneering mayor from 1972-1986, most roundabouts in Jeddah, as well as much of the city’s corniche, are dotted with largescale sculptures. There are works by Henry Moore, Joan Miró, César, Alexander Calder and Victor Vasarely among many others. Usually the work is of, or derived from, a mid20th century Western understanding of Modernist formal abstraction. The shapes are organic or fleshy rather than minimalist or maximalist. Either that or they are quite literal pieces involving, say, a giant coffee cup, an eye, a fist, oversized pieces of stationery, or calligraphy that has been given symbolic form such as a ship or a wave.

Henry: Which artists have influenced you most? ‘Henry Moore. Then Barbara Hepworth. Perhaps Salwa Shogar as well, the Lebanese artist.’

Henry: And what was the first piece of art that really mattered to you? ‘Henry Moore’s Three Piece Reclining Figure No. 1 (1961). It’s in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I haven’t been able to see it in person, yet, but I’ve studied photographs of it and I wrote about it for my Masters thesis. More than anything else this got me interested in the historical representation of groups in sculpture: the relationships between the different figures especially. It’s unusual to see a sculptural group where they are linked by the act of prayer.’

Henry: So would you say this piece by Henry Moore set you on a path that has led to Humbly and Devout [Al-Sherif’s contribution to ‘Edge of Arabia’]? ‘Yes, certainly.’

Henry: What do you like about Henry Moore’s work? ‘The way he manipulates the female form most of all. The simplistic, pure way in which it is presented. Also the integrity of form that he manages to achieve.’ Humbly and Devout is made from marble aggregate and polyester resin, and is based on a photograph of four girls at the first stage of prayer, prayer being one of the five pillars of Islam and something the Qur’an urges all Muslims to do five times a day. In the way she’s presented them, their relationship to one another and their form, there’s a clear parallel between the figures and the four fingers of a hand. The praying women, each in abaya, are bound at the base of the sculpture as if fingers in a series of knuckles. Still they move with a degree of independence, which is in part a reference to the Islamic virtue of praying as a group rather than on your own. ‘It’s also about the regularity of prayer,’ Al-Sherif explains. ‘So I chose the hand because it’s such an everyday, functional part of our bodies. Similarly prayer is to be done throughout the day and is a regular part of your life.’ Al-Sherif has been a sculptor for 8 years now, having graduated with a Bachelors degree from the Jeddah College of Fine Arts four years ago. To begin with she worked only in clay but has since moved on to tougher materials. This allows her to create larger work. With this has come an invitation to teach, more exhibitions and of course more exposure, though she has not yet sold any work so at the time of writing Al-Sherif remains near the beginning of her artistic trajectory.

Henry: Have you ever experienced any kind of opposition to your work on the grounds that is it may be morally, traditionally or religiously wrong to create figures in the way you do? ‘No. The community here in Jeddah understands that my figures are not being worshipped. They’re suitably abstract. They are symbolic of an expression rather than attempting to be recreations of human beings. Even if there are some people who don’t truly understand what is haram [religiously unacceptable] I know inside myself that this work is my expression of the power of prayer. My intention here is entirely pure.’ I leave her to it. It’s around midday and the sun on her outdoor workspace renders it almost unusable. Her favourite time to work is by night so she’ll often work until daybreak. She likes it when the roofscape of irregular squares, rectangles and cubes begins to abound with the dawn call to prayer. “Prayer is better than sleep!” a pre-recorded muezzin will cry, the words soaring into the sky, before the sun breaks the horizon and she goes in to say her prayers and get some rest.

Henry: What’s the first piece of art that really mattered to you? ‘Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss.’

These last two have a marked significance for Farea. He is interested by circles, and especially those that imply some kind of kinetic energy. Diagrammatic circles are a leitmotif in Farea’s work. ‘The circles are to do with perfection. In electricity, or the flow of blood around one’s body, if the current is circular then you know the particular being supported by this circuit is alive. It is functioning correctly. The circle also has no beginning or endpoint, and for me everything in life is related to the movement of the circle. Day, life, death – they are all circular.’ As well as circles, his works are characterised by a degree of nostalgia. His contribution to ‘Edge of Arabia’ is inscribed with the words: ‘I love the Najd forever.’ He feels that building design in Saudi Arabia today has gone downhill, and that the ingenuity of early 20th century Saudi architecture has been lost. ‘The traditional mud-house is extremely efficient when it comes to keeping out the heat. Also it is warm in the winter. So this is one of the main messages in my paintings – that we need to make sure we don’t lose this knowledge.’ As well as being an interior designer, Farea is a trained architect and makes drawings for a Riyadh-based architecture firm. But, if he believes so strongly in reinvigorating the classic ideals of Saudi architecture, why has he had his house built in an entirely modern style? ‘It’s difficult with the new materials. Really. But I’m trying to find a way of combining new construction models with traditional learning.’ He smiles apologetically. Having never studied art Mohammed Farea is self-taught and, similar to Ahmed Mater and Abdulnasser Gharem, at the age of 22 he joined the Al-Miftaha Artists’ Village in Abha. It was and remains the only artists’ village anywhere in Saudi Arabia. The National Institute for Art closed in the mid-1980s. Farea was in Al-Miftaha for three years where he exhibited locally and got an accelerated understanding of the painting process.

‘Van Gogh, because of his colours, his texture, the way he made marks.’

Henry: Where would be your ideal place to work? ‘The studio we’re in now. Although there are some things I don’t need here,’ he starts to laugh. ‘Like the easel there.’ He points to an easel looking incongruous amidst the impeccably clean floor and walls. ‘I never use it. It’s just for show! I much prefer to work on my paintings when they’re flat.’

Henry: What are you reading? ‘Magazines to do with interior design, poetry, or The Thousand and One Nights. But at the moment with an exhibition coming up I don’t have time to read.’

Henry: And what do you listen to while you work? ‘Readings from the Muqamat, from Andalusia.’ These are rhyming stories from the Middle Ages to do with trickster figures who dazzle and shock with their rhetorical wizardry. ‘Also Mon Amour’ – a kind of light calming music, like muzak but with more flutes and panpipes.

Henry: What should change in the world? ‘The way we think about the environment, as well as tradition and heritage. I’d also like there to be more cultural exchange.’

Henry: When did you last cry? ‘When I got married. Not because I was upset! But because I had to sell so many paintings to raise the money to get married, and it was sad to lose all this work. I’m happy now though.’

quenches the mind

Born in 1968, Mohammed Farea is one of the youngest members of the Riyadh Fine Art Group, along with Sameer Al-Daham and Ali Al-Ruzaiza. His work focuses on the architecture of the Najd region, at the heart of Saudi Arabia. He emulates the traditional design of houses there in their proportions, outline and the materials used. Also he seeks to convey something of the colour he has grown up around in the south of the country – not the Najd, but Abha, in Aseer. He combines the intensity of fuschia with, say, tangerine, primrose or lime, to create a startling yet warm effect in his paintings. The shapes he uses are often quite literal, so you’ll find equally indigenous palm trees, mud-houses, veiled figures or skies free from clouds; as well as the sun and moon.

Henry: And which artists have influenced you most?

OASIS MAGAZINE

MOHAMMED FAREA

MAHA MALLUH Maha Malluh has been exhibiting both in Saudi Arabia and internationally since 1976. Most artists who have been working for this long are prone to slip into an artistic and mental routine, finding pleasure in minor adjustments or perhaps craving the security of repetition. Malluh belongs to a different category of artist. In recent years she has created her most experimental work. At the heart of this development are her photograms.

quenches the mind

Similar to the earliest kind of photograph, a photogram is made without the use of a negative or a camera. Instead photographic paper is exposed directly to a light-source. The arrangement of objects interrupting the passage of light determines how the photogram will look.

OASIS MAGAZINE

Both William Fox Talbot, the father of modern photography, and Man Ray were known for their photograms, so there is nothing original about this technique, however Malluhâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photograms acquire unexpected and striking meaning in the context of where they are made and when. Most obviously they can be read as inverse images of what an airport security guard sees on his monitor as potential travellers file past. The meaning of their possessions is altered so they are read only in terms of the threat they may or may not pose. At the same time the appearance and profile of the traveller is gauged. As several artists explained to me, the experience of international travel as a Saudi citizen following September 2001 has changed a great deal. There has been a paradigm-shift in the typical internal calculations that go on in the head of an average airport security guard. In some ways these photograms allude to that. The objects Malluh has placed in her photograms relate to her personal history: thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a Mickey Mouse figure, toy chairs, mobile phone parts, key-rings, packaging, keys and combs. Once placed in a Tupperware pot reminiscent of the tray used for loose items at a security check, they ambiguous in their meaning and more sinister. In a different sense these pieces are suggestive of the external human landscape beyond her home in Riyadh. By creating a photogram the colour of each object is polarised either to white or black. In doing this the gradient, depth and nuance of each is flattened. Similarly, outside in the streets of Riyadh men generally wear white, women are dressed almost entirely in black. Sartorial individuality exists only really in the way men wear their ghutra, for example, or for the women it might be about their choice of shoe and whether or not to have a pinprick of embroidered colour on their hem. Merwed - from the series: Tradition & Modernity (photogram - Lambda photo prints) by Maha Malluh, 2008.

We meet in Malluh’s studio: a peaceful, tall-ceilinged outhouse in the suburbs of Riyadh with a darkroom in one corner. She works mostly in the mornings, accompanied either by Classical music or the hip-hop her children have introduced her to. In 2007, Malluh had her most successful exhibition to date, in Galerie O in Riyadh. She sold almost a hundred photograms. Unusually, most of these were bought by young people.

Henry: Does this body of work feel like a new departure for you? ‘In some ways, yes. Before I was making collages involving local fabrics or I was photographing traditional buildings. So formally, it’s different. But what’s also changed is the way people respond to my work. I no longer have to explain my work repeatedly. Before, because I’d trained in America and France, with my work I tried to introduce people to new techniques and new horizons and would spend a great deal of time just explaining it. This was tiring. Now I don’t have to do that so much. My audience is less confused by what I am doing.’

Henry: For you what’s the point of art? ‘To make people understand things in a different way. We need art more than ever in Saudi Arabia because life has become more hectic now. People forget about things like watching the sunset. They don’t look at nature in the way they once did. Good art works against that in the sense that it forces you to pause, to contemplate and think harder about your surroundings.’

Edge of Arabia 16 October, 2008 - 13 December, 2008 18 October, 2008: Education Day (speakers: Reem Al-Faisal, Dr. Geoffrey King, Peter Sanders) Brunei Gallery SOAS, University of London Russel Square, London WC1H 0XG

www.edgeofarabia.com

55 OASIS MAGAZINE

Also unusual was that at this exhibition Malluh sold mass-produced travel bags, book bags and other objects decorated with her photograms.

quenches the mind

‘You see, many things in the realm of Saudi art are shifting,’ she explains. ‘There’s a new generation of Saudis who are beginning to see contemporary art as a desirable, luxurious commodity, like a Louis Vuitton handbag.’

quenches the mind

in focus

OASIS MAGAZINE

King Faisal Foundation By Ahmad Dialdin

Legacy of a Father

He opened the first girl’s school, brought about universal health care, expanded agriculture, created industry, and helped unite the ideologies of ISlam with progress and public welfare. With such a list of achievements, it’s no wonder his sons were inspired to carry on his legacy. “We were fortunate enough to grow up in the shadow of a man whose greatness was acknowledged not only in the heart of his family but in the eyes of a nation. Our father’s love, discipline, and sense of responsibility instilled in us a desire, and perhaps even a need, to ensure that the spirit of King Faisal’s altruistic ambitions would live on after his untimely death in 1975.” Not a year after his death, they established the King Faisal Foundation and it is now considered one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the Middle East. Over the years, the Foundation has taken on some incredible tasks. It has dedicated itself to preserving and promoting Islamic culture through the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies. It furthers education through financial grants, scholarships, and a growing list of schools and universities, and rewards excellence in academic and scientific research through the King Faisal International Prize. Finally, it provides assistance and develops self-sufficiency in many less-fortunate communities around the globe, from building schools and clinics to creating training and employment opportunities to provide income and inspire a sense of good will.

“The common thread is the determination to preserve Islamic culture and improve the human condition.” -- Prince Bandar bin

Saud Al-Saud (grandson of the late King Faisal), Deputy Managing Director King Faisal Foundation King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies “The greatest libraries of the ancient Muslim world at Baghdad, Alexandria and Cordoba have disappeared, but fortunately this important tradition continues with the King Faisal Center.” -- Jo Franklin of the Franklin Film Archive. Founded in 1983 and financed by the Foundation, the Centre boasts a library of more than a million books covering Islamic culture, history and faith and 25,000 Arabic manuscripts. It is now considered as housing the largest literary collection in the Arabian Gulf and one of the largest in the Arab world. It also has manuscript conservation laboratories, a printing press and the popular Islamic Heritage Museum. Its mission can be summed up in the Prophet Muhammad’s saying, “ The seeking of knowledge is incumbent upon all Muslims.” The Centre is focused on contributing to the advancement of Islamic societies by promoting research activities, conferences, lectures, and publications, all in the hope of inspiring scholars and spreading knowledge as easily as possible.

57 OASIS MAGAZINE

“Like it or not, we must join the modern world and find an honorable place in it.” -- King Faisal

quenches the mind

King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, third king of Saudi Arabia, was a pretty amazing person. He raised this country, provided for it, and inspired its people. He sincerely cared about the country and was determined to improve its economic and social standards.

in focus

EDUCATION The search for knowledge doesn’t end with the Centre. The Foundation is responsible for establishing and maintaining some of the finest schools in the country, including the King Faisal School, the Effat National College for Women, and the new AlFaisal University.

quenches the mind

King Faisal School:

OASIS MAGAZINE

Opened in 1991, King Faisal School was established to raise future generations of students by maximizing their potential, instilling a sense of moral responsibility, and developing their leadership skills to become productive members of their school and community. The School is dedicated to blending Islamic and traditional values with modern educational techniques and facilities. Just last June, King Faisal school became an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School, offering the coveted IB diploma that ensures the best education for its students.

Effat National College For Women:

“Educate yourself. Be good mothers. Bring up perfect Saudis. Build your country.” -- Princess Effat Al-Thunayyan Effat College is the living legacy of Princess Effat, wife of King Faisal. It was founded with the help of the Foundation in 1999, just months before she died, capping a lifetime of advocacy for women’s and girls’ education. The college is committed to educating tomorrow’s leaders at an international standard by providing an interdisciplinary environment conducive to inspired teaching, learning, and research. Effat College effectively manages its resources to provide life-long learning and other services to the community; encourages national and international collaboration; and inspires new modes of learning which maximize the education experience.

AlFaisal University:

The university was founded in 2004 by The King Faisal Foundation along with the support of leading industry and research organizations such as Boeing, BAE Systems, United Technologies and King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center. As is with everything inspired by King Faisal, the university has been established in keeping with Islamic culture and heritage while consistent with global trends in higher education. The university’s educational strategy is based on programs that are geared to developing the capabilities, competencies, creativity, team-work and business mindedness of its graduates. The university comprises the Colleges of Engineering, Science and General Studies, Medicine and Business. Just this year, the university celebrated its first class to graduate from its preparatory program. The newly established University Preparatory Program gives promising high school graduates the skills they need to enter and succeed in worldclass universities,

59 OASIS MAGAZINE

Those three foundations are the founding basis of AlFaisal University.

quenches the mind

“The education of our youth should rest on three foundations: Faith, Knowledge, and Performance.” -- King Faisal

in focus

International Prize Perhaps one of the most globally-recognized aspects of the Foundation, the annual King Faisal International Prize enables the Foundation to reward dedicated men and women whose contributions make a positive difference; those who exceptionally serve Islam as well as the scientists and scholars whose research results in significant advances that benefit humanity. Nine winners have gone on to win Nobel prizes for the same works that were recognized by King Faisal International Prize. Four of the six Physics and Chemistry Nobel Laureates for 2001 were former King Faisal International Prize winners. The prizes cover a range of areas, including Service to Islam, Islamic Studies, Arabic Literature, Medicine, and Science. Each of the five Prize categories consists of a certificate, hand written in Diwani calligraphy, summarizing the laureate’s work; a commemorative 24 carat, 200 gram gold medal, uniquely cast for each prize; and a cash endowment of 750,000 Saudi Riyals. This year’s awards bring the total number of laureates to 195 distinguished individuals from 40 countries. Of notable mention, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud was selected for the Prize for Service to Islam, in recognition of his outstanding services to Islam and Muslims, both within the Kingdom and abroad. His domestic accomplishments included the

establishment of economic cities and the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology and the formation of the Human Rights Commission and National Dialogue Center.

“The Muslim scientist in his labo-

ratory, the soldier defending his land, the preacher calling for

moderation, the worker resist-

ing temptations, the righteous and conscientious judge and the student striving to acquire knowledge – all of these serve Is-

lam,” said King Abdullah during

his acceptance speech. “In their name, wherever they are in the

‘... and when I bowed to him, he lightly tipped my

head back with his fingers and his face lit up in a warm smile. “We people

of Najd do not believe that

man should bow before man: he should only bow

before God in prayer.” His air of nobility was not as-

sumed; it seemed to glow lands of Islam, I accept this honor and dedicate it to them all.” Conclusion: In just 33 years, the King Faisal Foundation has managed to spread knowledge, help people in need, and make this world a better place to live in -- no small feat indeed. If King Faisal were alive today, I would imagine he’d be immensely proud of his descendants for how well they’ve carried on his legacy and given their father such a loving tribute in his name.

from within.’ (King Faisal at the age of twenty-two as described by Muham-

mad Asad in ‘The Road to Mecca’)

Mashaweer

quenches the mind

Our Happening guide to Saudi

OASIS MAGAZINE

This time aroud, our guide brings you a lot of creativity from all around Saudi. Boutiques that are favourites amongst many for their choice of just the right designs from the hippest brands startoff our guide. Ramadan and Eid always bring out the creative marketing people and they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop at advertisement campaigns, they go onto the like of cakes to create unique flavours. Then, we interview young Saudi artists whose love for art started a growing online movement. We top off our guide with a salute to the entrepreneurminded and environmental young Saudis who are inspirational with their enthusiasm and creativity. Creativity all around! At the end, be sure to check out the coming events that will be covered by Oasis in the next issue.

Tunnel (photograph) by Fayiz Melibary ÂŠ.

souks

Jeddah Mahat Boutique Since 1990, Mahat Boutique in Jeddah has been providing its customers with a choice of the most sought after worldwide designers. Today, they have a mix of clothing from well-known fashion houses to fresh new designers. From Marni, Mathew Williamson, Betty Jackson, Sass & Bide, Rock Republic, and A Common Thread, to Jasmine Di Milo, and Ora by Rimalya all of which are available at Mahat. The availability of select choices from different designers ensures that each customer comes out buying a whole unique look. With fresh and modern interiors, Mahat is a great and relaxing place to enjoy your shopping experience. Mahat Boutique Palestine Street (Opposite Conference Palace) Jeddah Tel: 9662 6696576 www.mahat.com.sa

Newbury Boutique A funky little boutique in Jeddah is named after one of the hippest shopping streets in the US. Newbury Street in Boston, has been enchanting Bostonians, students, and tourists from all over the world for some time now. So, it is no wonder that two former Boston students who came back to their native Saudi wanted to bring back with them the charm of Newbury with its enchanting Parisian vibe and New York excitement. Newbury Boutique, located in Le Mall, is filled with brands that are celebrity favourites from Ella Moss, to LaROK, Arrogant cat, and Denim of Immortality. The shop is stocked with rows of hip and casual t-shirts and jeans. Newbury also offers local brands like the One Ummah t-shirts. Newbury Boutique Le Mall, 2nd Floor, Tahlia Street Jeddah

quenches the mind

www.newburyboutique.com

OASIS MAGAZINE

cake

foodie

A Date with a Cake by Rashed Islam

Ganache is a wonderful little Confectioner & Gourmet food store on Jeddah’s Rawdah Street, it sits along the same row of shops that ‘Wakame’ occupies and is a stones throw from the trendy ‘Life Store in Jeddah.

I had always assumed Ganache only sold chocolates, I realised how wrong I was when I decided to pass by late one evening earlier this week. It being Ramadan I thought I would pick up something sweet for the family, but once inside I was overwhelmed by the available choice of goods and at a loss of what to choose. Stars and helium balloons adorned the ceiling, Jars of Mexican chickpeas lined the shelves; Egyptian Fava Beans, Turkish Semolina, biscuits, spices, mixed or salted nuts, Turkish coffee, teas from across the far east, as well as sandwiches, a variety of chocolates, candies, cakes and canapes. It doesn’t stop there, other items are also available like kitchen accessories, cook books, the list goes on and on... and I haven’t even started on the dates and other edible treats Ganache provide.

The dates come from across the country, and Ganache have really taken their creations to a whole new level and gone beyond the usual ‘date stuffed with an almond’. Their quirkier varieties include chocolate dipped dates, stuffed with halwa tahina, caramel, pistachio, marzipan, and even peanut butter! (which are a must try!)

Once you take in all that’s on offer, it’s almost impossible to leave without buying something. The chocolates are as innovative as the dates, stuffed with cornflakes, coconut, or chocolate truffle. There really is something for everyone here. If you prefer something a little sweeter, assorted candies are also available and sold by the jar. Mini cakes are sure to be a hit with the kids as well as their parents, these tiny bite sized, muffin-like cakes are stuffed with everything from cinnamon, orange to chocolate & carrots, along with plenty of other universal favourites. For those who want something with a slightly more local touch, tiny mamool cakes are available along with a huge selection of halgoom (a popular Lebanese nut filled nougat

Date Cheesecake by Ganache. Photograph by Rashed IslamÂŠ

foodie

Chocolate dates. Photograph by Rashed Islam ©

sweet). These are hard to miss as baskets of different flavours cover the shop floor. I was finally sold on one of their latest and most popular creations. The Date Cheesecake, at 185 SR this isn’t cheap, but one bite and you soon realise it is worth every penny. Unlike the strawberry and blueberry cheesecakes also available at Ganache, the date version includes fresh dates actually mixed into the cheesecake, topped with flaked almonds and gooey toffee like dates; a dream for cheesecake lovers. Loaf cakes and savory nibbles are also sold. There’s far too much to list here, but if you have the time, (and waistline to spare!) head down to Ganache for a totally indulgent experience. Ganache Rawdah Street Opposite ‘Life’ Store Tel: (02) 6601390 Website: http://www.ganache-sa.com Read More Great Reviews written by people for people at www.jeddahfood.com

jeddah food.com

art scene

Jeddah Urban Artists

The young art scene in Saudi is ripe with captivating images of old and new, impoverished and wealthy, tarnished and glossy. But did you know that an “electronic” art world that shared and communicated virtually is also emerging here? Photographers, calligraphers, designers and every other kind of artist from around the world can be found on a website known as DeviantART; and the Saudi group on this site—Jeddah Urban Artists—is eager to make their mark. Can they help revolutionize the way artists in Saudi interact and produce art?

Farida Al Husseini interviews these artists for Oasis You probably don’t believe in parallel universes and unseen worlds, but they do exist. There is a whole other virtual world— yes, virtual—in which artists and art appreciators are meeting, talking, sharing and creating. So, if you’re a fan of the arts but utterly useless when it comes to the internet and web-browsing, you might want to start working on those skills; there’s a lot that you’re missing out on. An online art movement has started in Saudi, and Jeddah Urban Artists (JUA) is leading the way. Fayiz Melibary, Abdullah Kurashi, Asmaa Mohurji, and Sharifa G.—the founders—are artists themselves, and though they had no formal training they make up for it with a lot of dedication and heart. They have managed to build a virtual community of artists and provide them with the chance to meet each other and network regardless of which part of the country they happen to live in. They met on the DeviantART website— hence their original name Jeddah Deviants—and decided to form their own group within the site to unite other artists with a strong interest in Saudi arts (http://jeddah-deviants.deviantart.com). With a cost-free membership, artists can share their work, learn from their peers, get fresh opinions, and find out about new tools and tricks. The group was officially created on March 5th 2007 and has over 100 members with widely different backgrounds and careers. Their numbers still continue to grow steadily and they even have a branch on Facebook. JUA may not have created the website themselves, but they’ve found a unique way to benefit from its services to accomplish their goals and benefit others. In one of their journal entries on the website the group states that “We are not (and never were) a professional organization, but we still want to do things right, or not do it at all. So to start off our new resolution, we would like to help local artists get the publicity they deserve. We would like to collect your information and find potential employers, events, freelance work and competitions that you can benefit from”. JUA as well as other virtual communities are providing new social and cultural spaces. Rather than remaining separate from ‘the real world’, they are embedded in and have become an extension of Saudi society.

At the same time, Jeddah Urban Artists and other virtual communities are changing culture and society. In this sense, aspects of the public sphere become an extension of the virtual community. JUA’s self- proclaimed mission is to “start an art uprising’ and help spread arts all over the country; they have already begun to achieve this. They organize art events, exhibitions and photo shoots that are reawakening interest in albalad (the old part of Jeddah) and bringing art and JUA’s philosophies to the public eye. They encourage their members to become involved by posting job opportunities, competitions and community news updates online. They have also been getting the word out to the public through traditional media like Al-Arabiya News, Arab News and Layalina Magazine. Next, they plan to take on the challenge of providing photography classes. In short, they are a self-organized online community of artists who decided to make the virtual as real as possible. Many of the members have formed strong friendships and they have also developed bonds with other groups like the Saudi Photography Society. The founders of JUA represent a new generation of Saudis who understand the importance of images and symbols. They encourage homegrown talent and produce work that appeals to local sensibilities. Their art creates new social dialogue that enables us to rethink what matters and enliven our culture. They represent a new generation with strong ideals; they cherish art, equal opportunity, honesty and hard work: “We did what we could for some of our members and now ask our members to write their opinions of us be they good or bad. We would like to remain as transparent as possible instead of promoting our virtues and hiding our flaws”. The question remains: is the web becoming a new city of its own or simply changing the landscape of the ones we already live in and could Jeddah Urban Artists usher in a new meaning for Urban Art that also includes virtual space? We’ll have to stay tuned to find out.

Cut (photograph) by Asmaa Mohurji ÂŠ.

art scene

Waiting for a Ride (photograph) by Abdullah Kurashi ÂŠ.

Untitled (photograph) by Asmaa Mohurji ©.

Farida (Oasis): What are your personal goals as an artist? Asmaa Mohurji: To come closer to understanding who I am and maybe create something beautiful in the process. I try to find a sense of clarity with my photography and I like to experiment with old cameras. Fayiz Melibary: Personally, I always try to make my pictures contemporary. I don’t like to take a picture that could have been taken ten years back; I try to use all the technology possible to make a picture that resembles this century. Of course everyone has his own signature. Abdullah has this journalistic touch, his pictures are always expressive. Abdullah Kurashi: I like to share bits and pieces of information. Someone who came to the exhibition at Al-Harthy Center said [about Guarding What’s Left], “Why are you putting a negative message and trying to make our country look bad?” I said I’m not making the country look bad these are just some of the negative things that we have here. Unfortunately, everyone lives in a bubble or they think life is good, so unless they’re aware that life isn’t that good for everyone here they’re not going to try to push themselves to make a difference. It’s hurtful but it’s the truth, and it’s to make things better.

Farida: How do you define art? Asmaa: Art is a very broad term. Art is the outcome of human life, thus all art is to be appreciated. No-one has the right to declare one human life worth less than another. Abdullah: You know this actually started a bit of controversy between some of us photographers because he [Fayiz] said that he’s not proud of a photo because it was simple; he didn’t have to work hard to set it up or anything. Everyone else was saying it doesn’t really matter how hard it is to take the picture as long as it turns out really good and you got the right moment. Fayiz: We always have these discussions and arguments. I mean I’m the kind of person who believes that if you took a picture, you have to process it in Photoshop before you can post it in order to express the way you feel about your photography. It’s like you have to put your own signature on your picture. Some of my friends, especially Asmaa, she believes that if you take a picture you have to take it and that’s it. You have to make all the settings so that when you do the exposure it’s perfect already. We always argue. Abdullah: I think after a certain extent you end up editing your picture too much and it’s not really a photograph anymore. I edit the contrast and colors a little bit, after that if I have to edit anymore I feel like as a photographer I didn’t do the right job. The darkroom is just to develop a picture and that’s what Photoshop is, the digital darkroom.

Farida: How is your art influenced by Saudi? Fayiz: We’re all exposed to American media, but when we come up with our photography it’s always that mixture that comes from being exposed to the West and living in Jeddah, in a Muslim community. So the art comes out in a third way, it’s like a different direction that is a blend of all this. Asmaa: It’s not so easy making art in Saudi Arabia. We have beautiful material, but the society thinks cameras to be more lethal than guns, which forces the artist to use what little material we can photograph. Another thing it teaches us is night photography, since it’s almost impossible to go out in the daytime.

Asmaa: Everyone in exhibitions think they know more than you do, being a female and not yet 40. Not to mention, the harassment we receive from rude males.

Farida: Do you think it’s important to deal with women’s issues through your work? Asmaa: Growing up I was shielded from the cruel reality of how women are treated as a different species. It’s not a good thing, but not a bad thing either. It taught me to consider the whole human race equally human, and that there is more to humanity than gender.

quenches the mind

Abdullah: People used to think photography was haram, but the way we see it we’re recording something. We’re taking what we love that God created and keeping it for memories and to show to others. It’s like sharing with other people what you admire so they can admire it too.

Farida: What challenges have you faced as a female photographer exhibiting here?

OASIS MAGAZINE

Untitled (photograph) by Fayiz Melibary ©.

Farida: What challenges have you faced exhibiting? Fayiz: There are always challenges everyday, just to make an exhibition there are always question marks about approvals, hay’a and permits. Abdullah: And the more publicity you get for whatever you’re doing, the harder it is to run smoothly; there are always outside forces trying to influence and change what’s going on. For example, at Rahala Exhibition they wanted it to be mixed so that it was open to the artists, but then us guys only got a few hours during the day. They [Rahala organizers] were so supportive though, they actually had volunteers stand at the booths for the male artists who couldn’t make it.

Disembark (photograph) by Abdullah Kurashi ©.

Farida: What are your goals as a group? Asmaa: Art for art’s sake. To help young artists achieve their full potential. And later on, maybe an art uprising! Fayiz: Just to spread art and bring the potential out of people. Every time we do an exhibition or any kind of exposure we always get asked where it’s possible to go to learn. People have it in them they just need to polish it, but they can’t go anywhere so we’re trying to start photography classes and workshops.

Farida: Are you planning on officially registering the group? Fayiz: That’s kind of a problem since we’re mostly students, so we have trouble with funding. At the moment we’re trying to think of who could fund us without trying to get something out of us. Abdullah: If we could take care of funding and the permits then we could start a business, but so far people see us as a nonprofit organization and NPOs are usually respected more. If we turn it into a business it would be less personal and we like sharing our love for art.

Mobile Blood Bank (photograph) by Abdullah Kurashi ©.

Photograph by Abdullah Kurashi ©.

Untitled (photograph) by Asmaa Mohurji ©.

Farida: What do you think is the effect of online forums such as DeviantART on Saudi Arabia?

Farida: What kind of reactions have you received?

Fayiz: We kind of made a little movement in Jeddah, a lot of people are buying digital cameras and everybody’s trying to get into photography. A website like DeviantART has 55 million art pieces you know, you can find an amazing piece and the artist is from Jeddah! There’s a lot of potential in this country, there are anime artists on DeviantART and you can’t believe how good they are; and they’re in Jeddah or Shargyah or Riyadh. They’re sitting home drawing, submitting online, and getting all the attention they want online.

Abdullah: It’s ironic because sometimes I go to places where I can get shot but when I go to the upper-class areas, that’s when I get harassed the most by police. But I talk to them, tell them I take pictures, then show them some and they let me go. The truth is that we do have security risks here and you can’t blame them for stopping people with cameras around places with high security, it’s their job. They search you and make sure you’re not a risk and they let you go, but sometimes they can be stubborn and insist on arresting you.

Asmaa: The Saudis I meet on DeviantArt are so secluded. I wouldn’t think it’s the language that’s stopping them; I think that they intentionally lock themselves in their hypothetical box.

Asmaa: The reaction is very encouraging most of the time, but you’ll always find someone to spoil the joy and tell you that all this is futile. But what do they know?

art scene | young environmentals Ash it Ashtrays

quenches the mind

Although recycling is available in Saudi, it is still very limited in scale in comparison with other countries worldwide. So, it is when we find projects like Ash it Ashtrays starting with such enthusiasm and creativity, by young Saudis, that we are delighted to know more and spread the word. Cafes, Universities, etc... got spare cans? Ready to throw them away? Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t! First, read all about this project from one of its founders. By Mohammed Al Saadoun

OASIS MAGAZINE

It all started in a small town called St.tropez in France during the summer of 2006. I was at a flee market when I noticed contemporary designs for cans, such as cars, flags and ashtrays, just to name a few. I was really fascinated by this because I thought it was a creative way of recycling. So, during this month of Ramadan, I decided to develop this idea in the spirirt of charity and recycling. I really believe that it would inspire people to put junk into good use, rather than throwing them away. Thus, with the suitable skills and a lot of free time, my partners and I were able to discover how to recreate those ashtrays. Also, we requested from a few university campuses to collect the dispersed cans for us to increase our product capability. So, in the near future, we are anticipating to make agreements like these with cafes and restaurants. I hope our business will be the motive to start a chain reaction of recycling. For those who are interested my name is Mohammed Al Saadoun, I am one of the co-founders of Ash It Ashtrays. We provide a huge range of choices from classics like Pepsi, and Coca-Cola to modern beverages like Redbull and Icetea. You trash it! We ash it! So come on and request your favourites at: ash_it_ashtrays@yahoo.com To look at more images of our products follow this link: www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=34826584738 Or go to: www.new.facebook.com sign in and search Ash It in the category groups.

ES PR br

OT HIES

ed t

...

op er f e

a bl

PU CCIN

quenches the mind

O. . .

iss

es ig n pick

S. . .

ltim

ate

SSE R

plea

s u re

to .. p A. L l e i ase TE t t le

e d f or y

d r o ps of he

visit us for a... sensational journey of tasteful quality

OASIS MAGAZINE

ESSO.. .

SMO

m ix r tu

“I really believe that it would inspire people to put junk into good use, rather than throwing them away... I hope our business will be the motive to start a chain reaction of recycling.” Mohammed Al Saadoun

till next time... Don’t miss out on these events: Riyadh: Global Competitiveness Forum 2009

quenches the mind

Speakers include over 100 of the most distinguished global leaders: •Mahathir Mohamad (4th Prime Minister of Malaysia) •Mary Robinson (7th President of Ireland) •Carlos Ghosn (President & CEO Nissan Motor Company) •Paolo Coelho (Renowned Author) •Michael Phelps (Olympic Gold Medalist) •Nandan NileKani (Executive Co-Chairman, Infosys) •Mohammed Al-Mady (Vice Chairman & CEO SABIC)

OASIS MAGAZINE

Info on the Global Competitiveness Forum (GCF)

•2009’s GCF will be the third annual GCF •Under the patronage of His Majesty King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz •Discusses core competitivess issues, such as: international trade, human resources development, innovation, the environment and sustainability, globalization, knowledge-based industries, and the consequences of being globally competi-

tive •GCF 2009’s theme is “Responsible Competitiveness” •Questions about the future of oil, the risks facing the global economy, the role of global competition to the economy, and so much more will be discussed •Since 2007 ( the first GCF), Saudi Arabia went from being ranked 38th worldwide, in terms of ease doing business (according to the World Bank), to 23rd in 2007, to its current ranking of 16th worldwide.

25, January, 2009 - 27, January, 2009 Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh To register: www.gcf.org.sa Tel: 41 22 718 64 64

London: Don’t forget about the ‘Edge of Arabia’ art exhibition (17 Saudi contemporary artists) 16, October, 2008 - 13, December, 2008 Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London www.edgeofarabia.com www.offscreened.com

quenches the mind

healthy mind

OASIS MAGAZINE

Breast Cancer

Awareness Month Understanding and being aware of the disease is the first step of beating it! By Basma Bouzo

Every year, October prances around with its pink ribbons, hope for breakthrough research and the ultimate desire to make Breast Cancer Awareness Month not only October but for the rest of the year.

Facts and Figures 1- Breast cancer is the most lethal form of cancer for women worldwide 2- An estimated 1 million cases of breast cancer will be identified this year 3- By 2020, 70% of all breast cancer cases worldwide will be in developing countries 4- In Saudi Arabia, breast cancer makes up 21% of cancers affecting women 5- The incidence of breast cancer occurrence in men is 100 times less common than in women but they have the same statistical survival rates as women 6- 80% of all breast cancer cases occur in women over the age of 50 7- A woman’s lifetime risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer is 1 in 9

OASIS MAGAZINE

This October, be on the lookout for funky new products that support and donate part or all of their proceeds to charities, foundations and research for breast cancer. Cancer Research UK’s 2008 campaign “it’s a girl thing”, is selling must-have rubber ducks. The rubber ducks were given celebrity makeovers by Sharon Osborne, Twiggy and designer Barbara Hulaniki. The ducks will be on sale in their shops and on their website. If you prefer something a little more exclusive, then set your sights on the limited number of ducks that were signed by the celebrities and are available to bid for on Cancer Research UK’s eBay site.

quenches the mind

Though the years have seen Live-strong bracelets, stories of survival, simplified procedures and optimistic statistics during the years, the truth of the matter is that breast cancer is the second most common cancer worldwide after lung cancer with 10.4% of all cancer incidences. Breast cancer is also the fifth most common cause of cancer death. And in 2005, breast cancer caused over half a million deaths worldwide. Understanding and being aware of the disease is the first step of beating it!

Risk Factors: 1- Age: living longer is perhaps the greatest contributor to breast cancer. As prolonged exposure to carcinogens, cancer causing agents, is inevitable especially when it comes to the hormone estrogen

quenches the mind

2- Genetics: women with a strong family history of breast cancer have an increased risk. 10% of breast cancer cases are due to inherited genetic mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes

OASIS MAGAZINE

3- Bearing children at an older age: women who have children at a younger age, lower their risk of breast cancer. Furthermore, having more than 2 children will also lower the risk of breast cancer. The reason lies in the fact that women who delay pregnancy are exposed to estrogen for a more prolonged period of time as compared to their pregnant counterparts who take a break from estrogen during their pregnancy. Also, pregnancy and lactation help produce antibodies that help prevent cells from becoming cancerous. 4- Diet: researchers in Saudi Arabia, China and along Europeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mediterranean coast have found an increased risk of breast cancer in groups of women who adopted a â&#x20AC;&#x153;western dietâ&#x20AC;?: rich in red meat, shrimps, fish, candy, desserts, bread and milk. 5- Lack of exercise: women who have an active lifestyle show a 20% less risk of invasive breast cancer compared to their inactive counterparts

quenches the mind

OASIS MAGAZINE

Breast cancer researcher at work, ÂŠ

quenches the mind

Touch, Look, and Check:

84 OASIS MAGAZINE

People often associate breast cancer with lumps but 9 out of 10 breast lumps are not cancerous. Always remember to know what is normal for you, know what changes to look for, and report any changes to your doctor without delay. Here are some other less known signs to look out for. 1- Size and Shape: one breast may become larger than the other 2- Change in skin texture: puckering or dimpling of the skin 3- Discharge: one or both nipples might discharge a blood stained liquid 4- Appearance or direction of nipple: one nipple could be inverted inwards 5- Rash or crusting of the nipple or surrounding area 6- Lump in the breast or armpit 7- Lumpy area or unusual thickening of breast tissue that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t go away after your period 8- Pain in part of the breast or armpit unrelated to your period

Rubber ducks designed by celebrities for breast cancer awareness. All profits benifit breast cancer research. From top: Sharon Osbourne, Twiggy, and Barbara Hulanicki, ÂŠ

OASIS MAGAZINE

quenches the mind

Peace One Day

quenches the mind

September 21: World Peace Day

“If we are to move from a culture of war to a culture of peace then we will have to unite around the most fundamental issue that humanity faces – the protection of each other and our environment. 21 September is the starting point. Individuals can make a difference. By working together there will be Peace One Day.” Jeremy Gilley, Founder, Peace One Day

British filmmaker Jeremy Gilley had an idea in 1998: what if there was one day when the world stopped fighting? A world ceasefire? A day of peace? Jeremy met with students, NGOs, peace negotiators, government representatives, heads of state, United Nations’ officials, human rights activists, Nobel Peace Laureates, Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, His Holiness the Dali Lama and so many more. They all assured him that such a day could exist. On the 7th of September 2001, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a new resolution and formally established an annual day of global ceasefire, an international day of peace which was later fixed globally to be on the 21st of September. Peace day was promoted by the release of the documentary ‘Peace One Day’ in 2004 which shows the real life-saving initiatives by leading humanitarian organizations. In 2008, Jeremy completed his second documentary, ‘The Day after Peace’, which includes footage of his visit to Afghanistan with Jude Law. ‘The Day after Peace’ was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May of this year and received a rapturous welcome.

OASIS MAGAZINE

The Peace One Day organization is endorsed by major celebrities around the world; designers Stella McCartney, Marc Jacobs and Toby Mott designed exclusive T-shirts for Peace One Day. The organization aims to raise global awareness of Peace Day and inspire people to act. In 2008, Peace One Day will hold events in both New York and London and there will be a global television broadcast of the New York event around the world. The organization also focuses on advancing education in the areas of conflict resolution, global citizenship, human rights and the link between sustainability and peace.

quenches the mind

“You have proved that individuals can make a difference, and if each of us does our bit collectively we will make a major contribution.” Kofi Annan (From a meeting with Jeremy Gilley)

87 OASIS MAGAZINE

In 2006, 27.6 million people marked the day and in 2007, over 100 million people were active on Peace Day in 192 countries. There were life-saving initiatives in 14 countries and over 80 activities in Afghanistan alone where 1.4 million children were vaccinated against polio. What will you do to make peace on September the 21st? www.peaceoneday.org Yousef Islam. Peace One Day ©

travel

Istanbul: the European City of Culture

By Pól Ó Géibheannaigh h

Istanbul, the ancient Byzantium of Yeats’ poetry, the holy city of Constantinople is a cradle of civilizations. It also has one of the most unique locations worldwide, straddling both Europe and Asia with its skyline studded with minarets and mosque’s domes. Today, Istanbul has been given yet another appellation. It has now the honour bestowed upon it of being elected European City of Culture for 2010. This is the first time that the title has been bestowed on an Islamic city and it is not difficult to see why. Culture oozes from the stones like the honey that envelopes Turkish baklava. Without exaggeration, this is one of the most important and coveted pieces of geography at the interface of Asia and Europe, the setting for many of the most important economic, spiritual and strategic struggles of mankind.

This page: View of Istanbul Modern and the Bosphorus. Istanbul Modern © Opposite page: Haghia Sofia. Photograph by Pól Ó Géibheannaigh ©

quenches the mind

As one of the world’s most romantic cities Istanbul has been portrayed in literature and film alike; think the James Bond classic From Russia with Love. The history here tracks back to the earliest of times. Writers, explorers and historians alike, attempted to describe the beauty and magic of the place, using just about every superlative in the thesaurus: oldest, grandest, and most beautiful.

OASIS MAGAZINE

The city was originally known as Byzantium, which was a thousand years old when the Emperor Constantine the Great refounded it as the capital city of the Roman Empire in the year 324 CE, whereupon it was given the title Constantinople, the City of Constantine. In 1453 CE, Constantinople was captured by the Turks under Sultan Mehmet II. The name was changed then to Islambol; a corruption of Constantinople due to the Ottoman dialect but one which the locals will tell you meant “full of Islam”. In the twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire came to an end in 1923 with the founding of the modern Republic of Turkey under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who established the capital of the new state in Ankara in the heart of Anatolia. For the first time since late antiquity, Istanbul was no longer the capital of a world Empire. In the years since 1923, it has continued to be the most important city in Turkey with its European and Asian suburbs spreading either side of the Bosporus. The small peninsula on which Istanbul stands has witnessed more history than most countries. Today, Istanbul is very much Turkey’s cultural heart as it is the country’s largest city and port, her business and cultural centre and the arrival point for most tourists, whether by air or sea. The 17th century Blue Mosque of Sultan Ahmet, which is located opposite the ancient Byzantine church of Haghia Sophia, is the Istanbul of postcards and history. Although far from being the finest of the city’s mosques, Sultan Ahmet’s Blue Mosque, named for its blue tiles, is probably the most photographed by tourists in all of Istanbul. The Blue Mosque, along with the Topkapi Palace, is among the greatest attractions of Istanbul for any visitor. The Blue Mosque, a building of cool restraint was built over the palace of the Byzantine Constantinople and caused a scandal when it was completed because it had as many minarets as al-Haram, the mosque of Holy Mecca and the most sacred place of prayer in the Islamic world. Sultan Ahmet I protested that it was not his fault. He had told the imperial architect that he wanted a mosque built with gold minarets. But the Turkish words for “gold” and “six” sounded similar, and the architect, Mehmet Aga, was notoriously hard of hearing. Whether or not anyone believed this bluster, the Ottoman Empire made amends by paying for a seventh minaret to be added to the Haram mosque of holy Mecca. While the Sutlan Ahmet’s mosque is superlative; try also to see those designed by the architect Mimar Sinan, such as Suleymaniye or Sehzadebasi, behind the Grand Bazaar, or Rüstem Pasa near the Galata Bridge.

Ciragan Palace Kempinskiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s view of the Bosphorus and Ortakoy Mosque. Ciragan Palace Kempinski ÂŠ

The Topkapi Palace Museum contains thousands of historical artifacts. They include the Holy Relics of Islam that were confiscated from Egypt by the Turks early in the 16th century after the occupation of the Mamluk lands, thus increasing the power of the Ottoman throne and giving the Ottoman Sultans the title of Caliph of Islam. The Holy Relics include personal articles and garments of the Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H), one of the oldest manuscript copies of the Qur’an, and the keys of the Ka’aba. Every year on the fifteenth day of the fasting month of Ramadan, (known in Turkish as Ramazan) the long sleeved mantle belonging to the Prophet Muhammad was removed from its chest and reverently kissed by the Sultan, his viziers and other dignitaries. In preparation for this event the chest containing the holy relics was removed to the Revan Pavilion, while the Pavilion of the Holy Mantle was cleaned thoroughly, its walls washed with rose water, its columns polished, and the air scented with incense made

quenches the mind

from musk, aloes and other aromatics. Then, fifteen royal attendants reciting prayers carried the chest back to its place. Today the holy mantle and its casket, the holy standard, two swords and a bow belonging to the Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) can be seen here. The Destimal Room, which was restored in 1997, was originally used by the pages that waited on the Sultan. Here you can see two ancient manuscripts of the Hümeze and Tekasur suras (believed to be among the earliest Qur’an texts), letters written by Muhammad (P.B.U.H) to the false prophet Musaylimah Al-Kadhdhab, the stone cauldron of Abraham, the sword of David, the headdress of Uwais al-Qarni, the footprint of the Prophet, cases for miniature Qur’ans, Kismets, and a relief wood carving of the Aqsa Mosque. Apart from their religious significance, all these items also are prominent works of art.

93 OASIS MAGAZINE

Opposite the Blue Mosque of Sultan Ahmet is the Haghia Sophia (‘the Holy Wisdom’). After close to 1,000 years as a church and then 500 years as the chief mosque of the Ottoman Empire, it is now revered by Christians and Muslims alike. Directly north of Haghia Sophia is the imperial enclave of Topkapı Palace. The palace was the hub of Ottoman power for more than three centuries, and for lavish decor and exquisite setting, it is a must-see. The palace is located where the acropolis of Byzantium once stood on the peninsula overlooking the Golden Horn, the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara. The palace complex covers an area of 700,000 square meters and it is surrounded by five kilometers of walls. The Topkapi Palace is the second palace built by the Ottoman Turks in Istanbul. After the young Sultan Mehmet II conquered the city in 1453 CE, he had his first palace built at the site where the Istanbul University stands today. Soon afterward he ordered a new palace and in 1479 CE, after 14 years, the Topkapi Palace (initially called the New Palace) was ready to be used as the Sultan’s residence and centre of the Ottoman government. The design is typical of Islamic and Turkish palaces. The distinctive element of its plan is a series of open courtyards with trees to provide shade. Each courtyard was designed for a specific function and they connected to one another by monumental entrances. Functional buildings are arranged on the sides of courtyards. The palace’s plan today is not the same as when it was built, since Sultans who succeeded Mehmet the Conqueror have made additions and annexes.

Of course a visit to Istanbul would not be complete without indulging with a visit to the Grand Bazaar, often claimed to be the world’s oldest shopping centre. The streets around it now host most of the real trading but the bazaar is still the centre for jewellery and the top place for fabrics. With four thousand shops, the entire area around it is shopping, shopping, shopping for blocks and blocks. Even with four thousand shops this is a mere fraction of the whole picture. Downhill from the bazaar quarter is the Egyptian (Spice) Market, then the Golden Horn, lined by long-neglected neighborhoods that are now candidates for gentrification. The water is spanned by the modern Galata Bridge, which links the old city with the new to the north. From here, it’s only a short walk to the restaurants and cafes of Beyoglu, a district where a “little Europe” developed in the 19th century, complete with hotels, banks, theaters and apartments for diplomats and businesspeople. Beyoglu boasts rooftop cafes with an excellent view of the Istanbul skyline, palaces and magnificent mosques between the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn.

OASIS MAGAZINE

quenches the mind

The contemporary art scene is as vibrant as any European capital and if that’s your looking for, then head to the Istanbul Modern, as it’s called (or Istanbul Museum of Modern Art), a wonderful modern art museum located in a vast former dock warehouse in Tophane district on the southern Bosporus shore one kilometer north of the Galata Bridge. Opened in 2004, the museum with its clean gracious architecture is beautifully done. The changing exhibits include works by both Turkish and foreign artists, although the museum’s prime purpose is to encourage the creation of modern art in Turkey and it is therefore not surprising that Turkish artists are rightly given primacy of place. Istanbul Modern ©

OASIS MAGAZINE

The pulse and energy of this young country, where more than half of the population is under 25, is palpable here. Especially because of its glitzy nightlife, Istanbul is celebrated as the “hip city on the Horn”. Newsweek even went so far as to call Istanbul “one of the coolest cities in the world.” Beyolu district is home to many delightful boutiques and shops; it is equally located to even more trendy shops in the heart of Nisantası, with its numerous malls. Nisantası, is also renowned for its many Art Nouveau apartment buildings and is home to several prominent figures of the Turkish jet-set. It is the place where you, if you are inclined to bit of celebrity spotting, can easily see famous people walking around on the street any time during the day. Nisantası is known as being one of the most expensive places of Istanbul. It is the place where you can shop at Gucci, Armani or any of the other famous fashion houses.

quenches the mind

OASIS MAGAZINE

96 Above: Istanbul Modern exhibition. Below: Istanbul Modern shop. Opposite page: exterior of Istanbul Modern. Istanbul Modern ©

Turkish food is rightly regarded as one of the world’s greatest cuisines; with an abundance of fresh produce, rich traditions and the Turkish ability to absorb diverse influences that is hardly surprising. The essentials of Turkish cooking evolved in the steppes of Central Asia when the Ottoman Sultans held sway from the Danube to the shores of the Red sea. Thus the Turkish palate was broadened beyond belief. Today, it is quite likely to encounter a menu complete with Balkan style grills, deserts as sweet as anything in Greece, Persian style plates and dishes zesty with Arabic spices as well as quintessentially Turkish flavors. Istanbul hopes to make 2010 a magical year for the city, complete with dazzling events for tourists, European creative artists, street theatre, floating platforms on the Bosporus and a trip back in time through 7,000 years of history. Dilapidated historical monuments are now being restored, including those from the city’s Christian and pre-Christian eras. So, what do the city fathers have planned to celebrate the culture of this beating metropolis? Well, to better publicize Istanbul’s role as a European cultural capital across the globe, world-renowned artists, men of letters, screen and stage directors and musicians will be invited to Istanbul in 2010. Books, films and stage shows themed around the concept will be produced. Among the stage arts events to be held before and throughout 2010 are the 2008

OASIS MAGAZINE

quenches the mind

Istanbul Theatre Festival, the 2009 Turkey Theatre Festival and the 2010 European Universities Theatre Festival; “Contacting The World,” a global get-together for young stage artists; the Symposium of Education and Restructuring in the Turkish Theatre; Drawing the Map of Istanbul Theatres; the Istanbul International Ballet Competition, which will be launched this September; the world premiere of “Prometheus’ Freedom,” directed by famed Greek stage director Theodoros Terzopoulos; and the Amber Art and Technology Platform, which will blend art with technology in performing arts.

OASIS MAGAZINE

Given the fact Istanbul has its own international film festival, cinema has been well catered for, there will be the “Istanbul Beyazperde Kitabı” (The Silver Screen Book of Istanbul), which will talk about the films set in Istanbul; the movie “10 Istanbul,” to be shot by 10 foreign directors, giving their accounts of 10 separate districts in Istanbul; and the documentary “Türk Sinemasında Istanbul” (Istanbul in Turkish Cinema), which will showcase how Istanbul locations frequently used in Turkish movies have undergone changes over the decades. In the field of literature, there will be a novel writing competition aimed at getting esteemed authors from both Turkey and abroad to produce novels that center on Istanbul; the Literature Map of Istanbul, which will focus on Istanbul’s districts where native and foreign writers spent major parts of their lives; an essay competition on Istanbul aimed at students; and the “Dillere Destan Istanbul” (Legendary Istanbul) project, which will host one writer from each of the past and upcoming European capitals of culture and have these writers pen works about Istanbul. Another project is a book titled “Istanbulum” (My Istanbul), which will compile essays by 40 Istanbulite writers about their life stories and the stories of their neighborhoods. Music lovers will relish the current concert series called “2010’a Gider Iken” (On the Way to 2010), which was launched on June 21, World Music Day. This is one of the main projects in the field of music. The admission-free concerts will be held every month in the city’s most frequented squares, public transportation hubs and parks. There will also be mini concerts titled “Tarih ve Müzik Kucaklasıyor” (History Embraces Music) to be held in historical sightseeing locations; and the “Gençlerle Gençler Için” (For the Youth with Youngsters) concert series, aimed at changing the public’s perception of classical music as “elitist.” The founding of a new orchestra called the Istanbul 2010 National Youth Orchestra, which will consist of young professional instrumentalists, is also among plans within the scope of the project’s music leg. The organizers in addition plan to launch an international festival of contemporary musical theatre. This city is a living example of the much sought-after meeting of civilizations - something so desperately missing in the modern world that the search for it seems almost Utopian. For more than two thousand years, as if inspired by Aristotle’s theory of the four elements, the city has captivated humankind’s attention. Once it was in gold that people saw as the

quenches the mind

OASIS MAGAZINE

quenches the mind

102

perfect blend of the four elements; however, Istanbul, which once ruled lands on three continents, has served as a magnet for migrants throughout the ages for whom its streets are paved with that proverbial gold. After all the traumas it had experienced since its foundation, symbolically guided by the four elements, Istanbul is now promising to revitalize the formula imprinted in its genes. In cultural and in artistic terms it will be worth its weight in gold to the world as a Capital of Culture.

While in Istanbul stay at:

www.kempinski-istanbul.com Hotel Les Ottomans: This boutique hotel, also on the Bosphorus, is an 18th century reconstructed pasha’s yali. Les Ottomans is as luxurious in its ammenities as any leading hotel. Part of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World, this boutique hotel has twelve individuallydesigned suites. The unique designs include modern touches like huge Arabic calligraphy on the walls and traditional Ottoman designs. Les Ottomans attracts some of Istanbul’s elite, wheather in busineess or social circles. They enjoy some of the most beautiful views of the Bosphorus along with live music every night at the Jazz Bar. You can ask for the hotel’s yacht to whisk you away from the airport to avoid Istanbul’s traffic and enjoy the views. Your butler and personal shopper will be waiting for you.

www.lesottomans.com.tr

101 OASIS MAGAZINE

Turkish baths or “Hamams,” your personal butler, and walls that if they were to speak would tell stories of their centuries worth of history is one great hotel to stay at. Located on the shores of the Bosphorus, the Ciragan Palace Kempinski offers guests breathtaking views of the ancient city of Istanbul. This genuine Ottoman palace was once home to some of the most prominent viziers, pashas, and sultans. The hotel was also once home to the Turkish Parliament but it then encountered some unfortunate events like the fire of 1910 and its occupation during World War One. In 1992, the historical palace was opened to the public as a hotel and in 2007 the hotel saw its latest renovations.

quenches the mind

The Ciragan Palace Kempinski:

edgy

Beyond the Clouds

Summer is over once again and it’s simply reviving to come back stocked with reserves of adrenaline to face the year ahead and make the push all worthwhile. I’m hyped and all good to go thanks to the inspirational journeys of three young men who against all odds were determined to reach their goals. It is perhaps the compelling symbolism of their ‘sport’, pushing one’s physical limits and transcending any mental barriers to reach the ‘top’ that really brought this article to be. “Everyone has their Everest” and it was truly inspirational following these young men in their journeys to fulfil their Everest. So read along and get inspired… dreams do come true.

Arthur Clarke once said “the

only way of finding limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.”

Photograph by Omar Samra ÂŠ

Journey 2: “Climb 4 Lebanon”

Journey 1: “Farouq Al-Zouman” On May 21st 2008, Farouq Al-Zouman reached the highest peak on Earth and by that he was the first Saudi national to conquer Mount Everest as part of a 2 month expedition. Farouq did not only raise the Saudi Flag on the highest point on Earth but proclaimed Athan, acknowledging his devout faith along with his love and dedication to his country. As a Saudi national, I was naturally elated to see an article declaring a “Saudi on top of the world”, it was from then on that I followed Farouq’s adventurous and often dangerous climb up the highest peak in the world. Farouq was part of the “Leave No Trace” program, set up by the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, that aims to develop ecotourism trips while preserving nature. With his journey, Farouq hopes to share the various challenges he has overcome and the lessons he learnt along the way; with that he hopes to inspire children of Saudi Arabia to follow their dreams. www.saudiontopoftheworld.com

After some gruelling 8 hours of ascent through icy strong winds and snow, on the morning of the 4th of August 2008 and at precisely 10.58am the team’s vaulting ambition paid off as they stood at 5,642 meters high on the summit of Mount Elbrus and traded a symbolic share on Lebanon’s Solidere, setting a record of the highest financial transaction of its kind on the European continent. Kheiry, a young banker from the city of London, whose belief in his country, Lebanon, and the children of Lebanon or rather the future of Lebanon made the push all so laudable. Kheiry is also an active member of Lebanon United, a group of young Lebanese expats who got together in support of their country, and during the time of conflict back in his native land a few years ago, the young group set on a brainstorming mission to find the most effective ways to raise funds for Lebanon and the same time raise full awareness to their cause. Soon “Climb for Lebanon” was created! With “Kili4Lebanon” being the first expedition. The target was to raise £200 thousand for charity and improve the quality of education in 30 schools throughout Lebanon. Inspired by their cause, UNICEF further pledged £1.25 million for the children of Lebanon. Sipping on some organic juice at London’s Whole Foods store few months later, I was sitting there with Kheiry discussing his second expedition, Project Elbrus- Europe’s highest peak’. The team’s successful ascent to Mount Kilimanjaro’s summit in September 2007, paved the way to project Elbrus. Kheiry speaks of how he has caught the ‘climbing bug’ and I must say his enthusiasm is infectious! He describes his upcoming challenge: the highest peak in Europe, how It’s no Kilimanjaro and how the Russian mountain is rocky, icy, and the climate is never predictable up there. I followed them up to Mount Elbrus in August. “Team Lebanon”, as they were referred to on Kilimanjaro, consisted of only Nicholas Akle and Kheiry Sammakieh this time. Kheiry explains: “We’re raising money for three orphanages in Lebanon. My plan is to climb the tallest mountain on every continent and carry out a telephone trade on the Lebanese stock exchange at the top of each one… apart from raising money and awareness, it’s also a symbol of belief in the future of Lebanon.” While joggling a full time banking job, Kheiry plans to continue training and climbing and hopefully placing such trades on the rest of the highest 7 summits in all 7 continents. In Nicholas’s words- “We did this to show the children of Lebanon that you can achieve anything you want when you put your mind to it no matter what your religion or political or family background... And we also hope some of the adults out there can also see that we are and always will be united as one people - long live Lebanon.” www.climbforlebanon.com

Journey 3: “Omar Samra” On the morning of the 17th of May 2007 and at precisely 9:49am Nepal time (7.20 am Egypt time), Omar Samra became the first and youngest Egyptian to summit Mount Everest at 8,848 meters. Omar also became the first Egyptian to climb Everest from its South face, the same route taken by Sir Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing in 1953. Omar Samra comes from a land that is embedded with the greatness of the pharaohs and this perhaps instilled in Omar the pursuit of nothing less. Shying away from being called a national hero, Omar carries with him an unfaltering national pride and an unbelievable stamina. One of his favorite quotes “if your spirit can believe it and your mind can conceive it, your body will do it” eloquently explains his stance towards thingsnothing is impossible. He has been to over 35 different countries and published writings depicting his traveling experiences in both Arabic and English. After graduating from University, Omar worked for HSBC London and often travelled around for business. Accumulating few savings, Omar quit his job and embarked on a one year (370 days) journey. From Burma, Nepal, China… across to Russia and all the way to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Argentina and Brazil, Omar’s trip targeted cultured villages and cities (14 countries within the Asian and Latin American Continents) as well as some of the world’s incredibly breathtaking landscapes which yielded an overall fascinating cultural exchange experience with some etched picturesque memories. “In the continents of Asia and Latin America, every day is a new experience, the possibilities endless. When you are involved in an experience so intense and continuous, it is hard to fathom how much you have actually learnt. It takes months, sometimes years.” Once the trip was over, Omar was then back to a ‘comfortable’ daily life and had undertaken a postgraduate degree. Before he knew it, Omar was there replying to a collegiate climbing team’s university-wide email, gauging interest in an expedition

to attempt Everest. Omar mentions how joining the team’s Everest expedition was one of the fastest decisions he’d ever made, especially since climbing Everest was a life-long dream he had. “When I read that email my heart skipped a few beats. I always knew doing an MBA would be extremely demanding but an opportunity to fulfil a life-long dream, climb the world’s highest mountain and be the first Egyptian to do so, is too hard to resist. Besides, I was never one to shy away from challenges and so the decision was taken. It has now become increasingly clear to me that one can plan their lives as much as they want and although this is good, one must be ready with all their learnings and experiences to follow their intuition and forge their own paths. In many ways, you can say that Everest has chosen me but in many others and regardless of whether I succeed or not, I feel that I was born to do this.” Like Kheiry and pending securing sufficient funding, Omar is on a row to undertake the 7 summits challenge- The highest 7 summits on the 7 continents. Since climbing Mount Everest, the highest and toughest mountain, Omar has ascended Mount Kilimanjaro in the spring of 2008 and Mount Elbrus in August of 2008 with two other Egyptians, making them the first ever Egyptian team to raise the Egyptian flag on the highest peak in Europe. They have also managed to produce a film tracking the climb and adventures up to the summit and down. With three down and four to go; Omar’s next stop is Mount Vinson, the highest mountain in Antarctica, this December! So keep an eye out and check out their Mount Elbrus’s ascent captured on film- to be released in 2009! www.omarsamra.com And in conclusion I refer to the words of Aldous Huxley “Every ceiling, when reached, becomes a floor, upon which one walks as a matter of course and prescriptive right.”

edgy

Buzzed, Wired, and Ready to Go

quenches the mind

here are the products we love

OASIS MAGAZINE

106

We love these products because they are all new takes on old classics. You got your revolutionized Dj system, your brilliant trash bags (yup, they’re pure art, making a statement), your classic foosball table turned designer, bubblewrap turns even more fun, and last but not least your old telephone handset making a come back.

PaceMaker The Product

“This will be to dance music what guitars were to rock ’n’ roll” Richie Hawtin The Pacemaker is a revolutionizing portable DJ system that lets you mix, play and perform anywhere, anytime. This 120-gigabyte music player offers a line-out, headphone crossfader, an equalizer, pitchspeed alteration, song looping, and the ability to save and share any mash up on the device’s website. As the Pacemaker is digital, supporting multiple music formats, you simply drag, drop the mix filter you want, such as cross fade, and then alter the graph that appears. The DJ software is easy, straightforward and offers innovative ways of creating mixes. Instead of simply listening to your music you can now completely interact with it, and the possibilities are only limited by your own imagination. Pacemaker features all the functionality of a professional DJ set without all the hassle. Easy to use and lightweight, this is the first product that brings DJing to the masses and right into the hands of the next DJ generation! www.pacemaker.net

OASIS MAGAZINE

quenches the mind

105

OASIS MAGAZINE

108 quenches the mind

edgy

quenches the mind

The Designers

New Yorkers have been waking up this summer to find their usual black, ugly, and filthy trash bags replaced with pretty pink trash bags with white polka dots. Gold, green, orange, yellow, blue, and purple trash bags, with different colored polka dots, also showed-up, just lying on the sidewalk oozing sweet smells, all through different Manhattan neighborhoods! Artist Adrian Kondratowicz is behind TRASH: Any Color You Like. His idea has been to create public art installations or trash sculptures to draw attention to waste by beautifying trash. With the help of business owners and residents in different New York neighborhoods, he was able to carry out this project and record peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reactions to the installations.

The Product

These brightly colored bags are eco-conscious (100 % biodegradable). The scent used on each bag repels bugs and vermin. Residents in each area, where the installations appear, have a say on what color and design the trash should be. The bags are being commissioned by different communities, schools, and businesses to give more awareness to the environment. A set of 10 bags start at: $30, Single bag at: $10. www.anycoloryoulike.biz

OASIS MAGAZINE

Art Trash

109

The Beautiful Game The Product

It is extremely difficult to go into something as big as the Milan Design Fair and single out an ultimate favorite. But, on April the 16th 2008, the football table was reinvented! “11” is a collaborative project between GRO design and Tim Modelmakers. “11” is referred to the number of players on each side and “the beautiful game” is commonly used to describe football around the world. The concept of the design, stemmed from the newly designed football stadiums that have a strong architectural and sculptural beauty and have managed to become landmarks of cities. The designers of “11” wanted to design a football table that is equally memorable and spectacular and most importantly has the capability of transforming the space that is placed in.

“The model of the football table incorporates a number of lighting effects. This required not only finding the best lighting solution, but also writing software to enhance the experience of playing the game - showing the winning goal or restarting the game.” Currently, the football table is merely a showcase prototype and even though it is fully play-able and functioning, only one model exists. The table is not for sale to the general public, if you are an organization interested in owning the table or wish to participate in its development, get in contact. info@eleventhegame.com www.eleventhgame.com

edgy

Bubble Calendar

The calendar is fully functional, with days of the week and all major holidays marked and weekends bolded for easy reference. The calendars make a big statement at 48” x 18” (122cm x 46cm) and are available with either a thick paper or clear plastic backing. “Popping bubbles is something everyone loves,” says Stephen Turbek, designer of the Bubble Calendar, explaining the inspiration behind the design. “Kids love learning about the calendar while popping the bubbles. Bubble Calendar is also perfect gift for that obsessive person in your life; as long as they don’t pop the whole year the first day!” www.bubblecalendar.com

113 OASIS MAGAZINE

The ingenious bubble wrap calendar introduced by Bubble Calendar LLC is a poster-sized calendar with a bubble to pop every day, turning people’s love of popping plastic bubble sheets into a near obsession.

quenches the mind

The Product

quenches the mind

OASIS MAGAZINE

114

yakking on the cell phone for more than hours at a time... YUBZ comes with its medical advantage in keeping our ears far away from the radiation emitted by our cell phones.

YUBZ

The product: Retro is back! And it is about to take your tiny cell phone by surprise. YUBZ has created ironic retro handsets that work with cell phones AND on actual computers for VoIP capabilities. The YUBZ Talk Online phone is a USB that looks retro on the outside but actually supports pretty much any VoIP program you have such as SKYPE, Google Talk, etc; not only that but it also works on both PCs and Macs. YUBZ Talk Online comes in three colors black, red, white and yellow; while YUBZ Talk Mobile comes in ten different shades ready to complement any cell.

And with most of us yakking on the cell phone for more than hours at a time, YUBZ comes with its medical advantage in keeping our ears far away from the radiation emitted by our cell phones. www.yubz.com

Money Grows on Trees

quenches the mind

By Bertrand Espouy (Brand Manager, Maya Chocolatier, Bahrain)

OASIS MAGAZINE

116

The tree produces small beautiful flowers which within six months will give heavy pods allowing for two harvests a year. In the pods are a great number of small dark seeds, the size and shape of broad beans, swimming in a white sweet mucilaginous pulp. These seeds are the cocoa beans that ultimately will be transformed into chocolate, one of the world’s most popular foods. If the tree likes hot and humid tropical climate, it does not like the sun very much and grows under taller trees, banana, guava, sometimes avocado which all produce the shade it needs. And yet this tree of tropical climates was baptised by an 18th century botanist of temperate Sweden, Carolus Linnaeus, who gave it the fitting name of Theobroma cacao, which literally in Greek means Food of the Gods. Theobroma cacao has existed for thousands of years in some parts of northern Amazonia, where it appears to have originated. Animals, birds and insects had learned to pierce the thick skin of the pods to access the sweet white pulp inside. They are believed to have played a part in its spread north and east up to the southern parts of today’s Mexico. It was then cultivated for at least 3500 years by the people inhabiting the part of the world that we know as Mesoamerica including today’s Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. In fact, the Theobroma Cacao is one of the oldest plants cultivated by mankind. The Olmecs, of whom we know very little, followed by the Mayas and the Aztecs of Mexico, were the main people growing the cacao tree or involved in the trade of the precious beans. All these people consumed chocolate as a beverage and for several centuries after the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés, chocolate as a food will be essentially a drink. The first solid tablet was produced and sold to the customers of England in 1849 by Joseph Fry. And yet beyond the extraordinary interest in chocolate as food, which swept the world from the mid 16th Century till today, there is another side to the story of chocolate, which is largely unknown. The first contact between Europeans and chocolate occurred in 1502 when Christopher Columbus, during his fourth and last voyage to the Americas, boarded a Mayan boat near the Coast of the island of Guanaja. As the ‘custom’ was in those days the boat was seized and confiscated. Gold was not found but bags of “muchas almendras de cacao”, or many almonds of cacao - ‘cacao beans’.

Cocoa Pods still on tree.

“...chocolate is one of the most sought after commodities in our contemporary world. For the Mayans and Aztecs, it literally grew on trees, and the elites that enjoyed the foamy chocolate were – one can say – consuming liquid money.” Bertrand

quenches the mind

Columbus did not know the value of this cargo and the beans were thrown in the sea. How could he have known that these beans used to produce a beverage for the aristocracy and upper class of Mayan and Aztec societies who also used them as currency? These bags of cocoa beans could easily be compared with bags of coins today of pound sterling, dollars, riyals or pesos.

OASIS MAGAZINE

118

On the 22nd of April 1519 Hernán Cortés, a would-be conqueror and Spanish notary, arrived from Cuba, and landed on the eastern coast of Mexico becoming allegedly the first European to set foot on continental America. There he learnt of the powerful Emperor Montezuma II, supreme ruler of the Aztec people and of his capital Tenochtitlan. By 1521, the Aztecs were defeated by the Spanish “Conquistadores”’ led by Cortés. His own people stoned Montezuma to death, and Tenochtitlan was destroyed. It became the basis upon which Mexico City would be built. However, the important discovery of Cortés was not so much gold as cacao. In his first letter to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Cortés describes for the first time the use of this strange bitter and spicy drink, which, he recognized, “does fortify the body and quench the thirst.” Very quickly Cortés discovered that the vast quantities of cocoa beans in Montezuma’s cellars were in fact the currency used by all people in Mesoamerica. The Aztecs did not know the wheel, had not seen a horse and had no formal system of weights measurement before the arrival of Cortés. All transactions were measured in numbers rather than in weight. The base unit was the xiquipilli or 8,000 beans. Because cocoa occupied such an important place in their culture, there were numerous roads, and armies of traders carrying on their back the standard load of three xiquipillis or 24,000 beans from the region of production to the houses of the elite. Commerce was thriving in pre-conquest Mesoamerica and cocoa was certainly one of the most important commodities bought and sold. The irony is that the beans were used as the very currency used to purchase the beans used to produce the drink so necessary to the daily consumption of rich and powerful Mayans and Aztecs. The commerce was extensive and it is known that cacao was reaching the Inca capital of Cusco in Southern Peru. The last Inca sovereign Atahualpa used it as a beverage, himself burned alive by the conquistador Pizarro.

As the beans were used as currency in Mesoamerica we can expect that the goods purchased and sold would have a price expressed in numbers of beans. Indeed they were. The 16th Century chronicler Francisco Oviedo y Valdés wrote that in what is today Nicaragua, the Nicarao people would pay 10 cocoa beans for a rabbit and 100 beans for a slave. We know that the daily wage of a porter in Central Mexico after the fall of Tenochtitlan was 100 beans and a local document dated 1545 lists the following prices: - - - - - -

One turkey hen: 100 beans One turkey cock: 200 beans One hare: 100 beans One large tomato: 1 bean One avocado: 3 beans Fish wrapped in maize leaves: 3 beans

As a matter of comparison we can judge the value of Montezuma’s estate from the report of the Spanish chronicler Francisco Cervantes de Salazar who tells us that the total amount of beans found in the imperial cellars was 40,000 loads or 960,000,000 beans. Another chronicler tells us that 2000 containers of foamy chocolate were used everyday for the soldiers of the Emperor’s personal guard! It could be reasonably assumed that after the Conquest, the use of beans as system of money would stop. On the contrary, the Spaniards were quick to understand the value of them. They would pay for almost everything from goods to wages with cacao beans. As a matter of fact, we know from an American traveller that as recently as 1858 in poor Mexican markets, cheap goods continued to be paid for in cacao beans.

After the conquest, the Spanish court compensated the conquistadores by giving them encomiendas or properties stolen from the Mayans and Aztecs, which very often had well-established cocoa orchards. The Indians had to work – literally as slaves – as their owners would have to pay the Spanish authorities a very high tax calculated in cargas, the Spanish equivalent of the Indian three xiquipillis. In Spain, the passion for chocolate drinking – by now it was sweetened – grew very quickly and the demand for these precious beans soon spread to the rest of Europe. In discovering the cacao bean, the Spanish conquistadores who had come for the gold, found an unexpected source of wealth that continues today.

quenches the mind

Today, chocolate is one of the fastest growing businesses in the world. A quick glance at the website of the ICCO (International Cocoa Organisation) http://www.icco.org/ clearly shows how serious and large an ‘industry’ cocoa has become, and in so many ways parallels its past. The story of the Theobroma cacao and its beautiful fruit pods, harbouring strange bitter beans swimming in a deliciously sweet white pulp, is a fascinating one. It is also a bitter and sad story; as bitter as pure raw chocolate. No amount of sugar is able to sweeten the pain and misery which human greed has created for its victims over the last five centuries in order to bring to the supermarket shelves chocolate delicacies and confectioneries.

And if one feels thankful for the fact that the price of the beans, for so long the preserve of the rich, is now low enough so that chocolate bars are widely accessible to the masses, one would be very mistaken. The history of chocolate is a cruel one. The conquest of Central and South America was a work of unimaginable brutality and cruelty, in the name of God and with the benediction of the Pope. The prestigious names of the famed conquistadores should not let us ignore the genocide perpetrated on an unprecedented scale under their authority. Few Europeans of the time behaved with humanity, one notable exception being the Spanish Bartolomé de Las Casas, arrived with Christopher Columbus in 1498 on the occasion of the Spanish Admiral’s third voyage to the Americas. Horrified by what he witnessed, he became the first and fiercest critic of Spanish Colonisation of the New World.

After the extermination of millions of native South and Central Americans, the demand for chocolate production helped launch the slave trade between Africa and the Americas, where the colonists were in desperate need of workers for their plantations. If there are some little pockets of goodness in this story it is essentially due to the English and American Quaker families, Fry, Cadbury and Hershey who were social reformers. As they were building their formidable capitalist empire they provided housing, health care and education for their employees, which was unheard of at the time. The city of Bournville in England, where alcohol purchase is still today frowned upon, is the legacy of these too brief moments of humanity. However, in the places where the beans are grown, misery is still too often the order of the day. In the middle of the Ivory Coast, while thousands of small family owned plantations are producing nearly 60% of the world’s cocoa, none of those working know the sweet taste of chocolate. As incredible as that may sound, they do not know what chocolate is. They only know one thing: the beans they harvest are what give them the meagre means to survive; that’s all.

OASIS MAGAZINE

In the end, chocolate is one of the most sought after commodities in our contemporary world. For the Mayans and Aztecs, it literally grew on trees, and the elites that enjoyed the foamy chocolate were – one can say – consuming liquid money. We cannot ignore the fact that there were many poor people who were doing the cultivation of the precious trees that required great care and attention as it is very fragile and prone to many diseases. These planters did not drink chocolate.

119

Where to Find Us Saudi Arabia Boutiques: DNA

Bookstores and Magazine Stands: Jarir Bookstore

Takhasussi Street Tel: 966 1 4199966 Riyadh

Nationwide

Safeway Tamimmi Life & Sid Boutiques Nujoud Center Riyadh Al Rawdah Street Tel: 966 2 6642188 Jeddah

Nationwide

Danube Nationwide

itechia

Carrefore

Kingdom Mall or Tahliya Street Tel: 217 8244 Riyadh

Nationwide

Galleries: Hewar Gallery Kingdom Center (52nd floor) Tel: 966 1 2111 200/300 Riyadh

Spa: Yibreen Spa Riyadh

Farm Supermarkets Eatsren Region

Airport & Hotel Bookstores: King Khalid International Airport Airport Bookstore Riyadh

King Abdulaziz International Airport Airport Bookstore Jeddah

Enjoy in Cafes: Java Time

Intercontinental Hotel

In Hotels Al Faisaliah Rosewood Hotel

Meridien Hotel

Tel: 966 1 273 2000 King Fahd Road, Riyadh

Hotel Bookstore Riyadh

Hotel Bookstore Khobar

International Events: ‘Edge of Arabia’ (Saudi contemporary artists’ exhibition) October-December 2008 Brunei Gallery, London Global Competitveness Forum (January 2009) Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh On Board Flights: Coming Soon Cities: Bahrain: La Fontaine Beirut: Coming Soon Dubai: Five Green Amman: Dar Al Anda Paris: Coming Soon London: Brunei Gallery Edinburgh: Coming Soon NewYork: Coming Soon Tokyo: Coming Soon

You Interested in selling or distributing Oasis Magazine? Contact us on: info@oasis-mag.com

Our Website: www.oasis-mag.com

Our Facebook: Search for Oasis Magazine group.

One Last Thing

quenches the mind

In celebration of everything that we have achieved throughout the year...

OASIS MAGAZINE

122

“Celebrate what you want to see more of.” Thomas J. Peters

If you decide not to keep me forever please recycle

ÂŠ Oasis Magazine