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| east . 2024 (photograph by ammar kalo) |
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| east . 2024 (photograph by ammar kalo) |
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| east . 2024 (photograph by ammar kalo) |
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| east . 2024 (photograph by ammar kalo) |
happy new year everyone! wishing a good year ahead for us all...
here's my first post of 2025 – i worked on a textile commission last year for the newly renovated vip majlis at the american university of sharjah (aus). for those who don't know, i graduated from aus all the way back in 2006! it's quite an honour to be invited to contribute to my old campus with one of my own textile works!
during my research for this commission, i found an online article which mentions ancient artefacts found in mleiha, a small town in the emirate of sharjah. these artefacts were inscribed with pre-arabic letters, including the ancient musnad script. i incorporated musnad letters/symbols onto the textile panel which correspond to the arabic letters ش ر ق , spelling the word شرق (east), a theory that the origin name for الشارقة (sharjah) is derived from. the word شرق also indicates the direction of the sunrise. these attributes correspond to ideas of language and enlightenment through education, which i thought connects nicely to aus as well.
'east' is an extension of my earlier textile series 'if speech is silver...' – researching dead scripts that were precursors to the arabic language, and reactivating them for today.
i haven't been able to do much textile work over the past year due to a lack of space and facilities. but i was really glad to have squeezed out at least one textile project for 2024. here's to making more textile works over the coming year...
ending my post with a shout out to ammar kalo for reaching out and commissioning me for the vip majlis. so happy to have worked on this. and i hope whoever visits the majlis enjoys my lil' textile...