cute artwork
I spotted these when I went out for lunch the other day – instead of a boring old hoarding hiding the building site they had a special needs school decorate it with their artwork. So cheerful!
min dae* Dubai
We have had an interesting couple of days. We had so much rain overnight last Wednesday that the schools were closed early on Thursday due to the water standing everywhere, and the resulting traffic chaos and leaking roofs no doubt. I went down to Sharjah on Friday and the place was a mess, great big ponds of water standing on the highway – it took me over 2 hours to get home again as traffic was at a standstill, not helped by dumb drivers going too fast and changing lanes at the last second as they do here – not really the recommended way to drive on wet roads but there you go. We have a had a cool and overcast weekend which I am loving I must say although poor Stu had to get up at 1am this morning to head off again on another business trip, the last for the year Insha’Allah.
 makes parking tricky |
 A very wet highway… |
“26,000 pages”
I love this.
[“26,000 Pages” by Hadieh Shafie is on the Jameel Prize 2011 short-list]
Made up of …26,000 strips of paper, each scroll is marked with printed and hand written Farsi (Persian) text then tightly rolled into concentric circles, concealing or revealing different elements of the text. The concentric forms of both text and material take their inspiration from the dance of the whirling dervish. Shafie’s paper scroll works demonstrate a constant element of her work which is the significance of process, repetition and time, all rooted in the influence of Islamic art and craft. Hadieh seeks to create work which is rich in layers of meaning and gives the viewer an opportunity for contemplation and reflection.
Hadieh Shafie was born in Iran and lives and works in the USA.
Details for all 10 finalists, and their work, available on the V&A website.
Art Dubai
Stu finally agreed to go with me to Art Dubai this morning (see nagging does work) as it was the last day of the show and I made him feel guilty that we don’t see and do enough cultural stuff here (ok the limited budget isn’t helping either but anyway). This acquiesence may have been helped by the fact that there wasn’t a Super 14 match on the box at the time but whatever the reason, we went and I am happy.
Continue reading