Bait Al Zubair Foundation’s endeavour to connect Omani artists with the abodes of literary pioneers of the country, resulted in the recently concluded in an exhibition titled ‘Artistic Journey in Omani Spiritual Poetry’
Bait al Zubair Foundation, through its Poetry lab, organised an exhibition and an intellectual seminar, last month, bringing to fore the palpable relationship between poetry, fine arts, and spiritual spaces that have documented many creative experiences in the Omani memory. Its objective was to identify the intricacies of knowledge; the aesthetic concepts that combine art with poetry and mysticism, while demonstrating the patterns of influence between words and colour.
The event threw the spotlight on the work that the Foundation has been doing over the last one year to facilitate field visits for Omani artists to experience the creative spaces in homes where some pioneers of Omani literary scene lived. The artists, inspired by those pioneers, read their works and then transformed it into paintings, culminating in the exhibition titled ‘Artistic Journey in Omani Spiritual Poetry’.
The exhibition featured works by a group of Omani artists, namely, Faisal Jalal Al Mir Al Balushi, Nadia Jumaa Abdul Rahman Al Balushi, Mohammed Saeed Mubarak Al Rashidi, Ali Hilal Humaid Al Maamari, Asma Kaleb, Fahad Salem Nasser Al Maamari, Mariam Al Amri, Amira Ahmed Ali Al Shehhi and Sami Al Siyabi.
Apart from this, a collection of calligraphy artworks about Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) that Bait Al Zubair formerly displayed at the Royal Opera House were also showcased. Alongside the seminar and the exhibition, the Foundation also organised a cultural symposium entitled, ‘Interference of Cognitive Systems: Poetry, Fine Arts and Sufism’, where Lebanese Professor and Poet Charbel Dagher, who has published more than fifty publications on philosophy and poetry, presented a paper on spiritual experience in the Arab world. Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Salami, editor of Al-Tafahm magazine, presented a paper on ‘Impressions on Islamic Art in Oman: Impact and Dimensions’; Dr. Abdalwahab Abdalmohsin talked on ‘The Temptation of the White Surface’; and Professor Abdullah Al-Hajri, a Sufism scholar on ‘Sufi poetry between fiction and reality in the Omani experience’.
The event was one of the several ones organised by the Poetry Lab at Bait al Zubair, the latest of which was the launch of the book ‘Thirty Sedra Guards the Mountain’ at the German University, which includes poetry texts for Omani writers in Arabic and German. The Lab is preparing for several upcoming events targeting several segments of the society.
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