Until 7 January 2024, Jameel Arts Centre is hosting Jameel Prize: Poetry to Politics, the 6th edition of the Jameel Prize, which has a focus on contemporary design inspired by Islamic tradition. The exhibition has returned to the Emirates. After its debut at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London, it toured to La Moneda Cultural Center in Santiago, Chile, and Franklin Rawson Provincial Museum of Fine Arts in Argentina. The show displays the artworks by the eight finalists: Ajlan Gharem, Golnar Adili, Hadeyeh Badri, Kallol Datta, Farah Fayyad, Sofia Karim, Jana Traboulsi, and Bushra Waqas Khan.
Ajlan Gharem (b. 1985, Saudi Arabia), who is not only an artist but also maths teacher, is the winner of the 6th Jameel Prize edition. In his art, Gharem explores the changing nature of Saudi Arabian society and the shift in power dynamics over time and across generations. His installation Paradise Has Many Gates (2015) copies a traditional mosque and is made of the chicken wire used for border walls and prison fences. The artwork references the eight gates to heaven described in the Quran.
Artist and designer Golnar Adili (b. 1976, USA) based in New York grew up in Tehran after the 1979 Revolution. In her work, she focuses on diasporic identity and issues of displacement. Her art piece featured in the exhibition, Ye Harvest From the Eleven-Page Letter, pays tribute to her deceased father, a political activist.
Hadeyeh Badri (b. 1988, UAE) makes tapestries to memorialise her late aunt Shahnaz. The artist incorporates Arabic script into them: she weaves texts and drawings from the diary of Shahnaz into the textiles. “[…] I use her handwriting and quotes from her diary to say things back to her and I want to continuously have a conversation with my aunt to remember her,” Badri says.
Kallol Datta (b. 1982, India), a designer residing in Kolkata, is fascinated by traditional clothing from North Africa, West Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, and the Korean Peninsula. Datta pairs and layers pieces from abayas, manteaus, hanboks, hijabs, and caftans. According to the designer, each layer of a garment has a different meaning. He aims to show that “clothing has been used as a tool by the dominant majority to oppress and subjugate minorities”.
Farah Fayyad (b. 1990, Lebanon) is a graphic designer and printmaker whose art involves experimenting and playing with the Arabic script. During protests in Beirut in 2019, Fayyad brought Arabic typography into the public and political sphere: she and her friends printed artworks and slogans by local designers onto the protestors’ clothes for free.
Sofia Karim (b. 1976, UK) is an architect, artist, and activist. Her Turbine Bagh project was inspired by the 2019 Shaheen Bagh protests against the Indian government’s Citizenship Amendment Act. The act offers amnesty to immigrants from three countries neighbouring to India, but Muslims were excluded. Karim uses designs on samosa packets for Shaheen Bagh and encourages artists and activists to do the same. “This is a form of protest and a form of resistance,” she explains. “The news will come directly to the people rather than being filtered through the state media.”
Jana Traboulsi (b. 1979, Lebanon) is an artist and graphic designer. After conducting extensive research into book making craft of the Middle East, she has created Kitab al-Hawamish (Book of Margins) (2017). In this work, she explores margins and marginalia in Arabic manuscript production and highlights subtle elements of book design.
Bushra Waqas Khan (b. 1986, Pakistan) designs and constructs miniature dresses using Pakistani affidavit (a state document) paper which is decorated with national emblems and Islamic patterns. The artist transfers the paper’s patterns onto fabric, cuts them, and embroiders into doll-sized garments. Their designs and shapes serve as a reminder of the impact colonialism had on Pakistan.
To get more information about the Poetry to Politics exhibition, please visit its official web page.
You might also be interested in visiting Nostalgia, an annual CFAD Faculty exhibition.
