Hazem,
A white day outside, everything looks different, the light, the smell and the acoustics of the landscape are fresh. I cycled to my studio where i left my camera and decided to take it for a walk within the college, but i noticed the cast of my face, it is white too, so I started with it:
then opened the widow to see this:
The sun was shining and with the snow the college looked like this:
I took this image:
I liked the way the light wass playing, and decided to play myself:
Back to my studio, I noticed this conversation with rust (time) and snow:
which brought an interesting memory
“Rusty sardine tins, olive and dates’ stones, marbles, wire cars and kites were our few toys. Books and electricity belonged only for the people who had, and TV was no exception. I first saw a real one, by climbing the steps over the neighbour’s wall. I dreamt of having one, I asked for a TV at Fadhlalah’s tiny shop, and magically, from underneath his shop desk, he presented one to me. Though it was plastic, small, very small, and to see its images I had to look through its eyepiece and hold it against the light. My first dark-box contained the universe, and seeded my fascination, much later, with light.”
Went for lunch with an friend and his wife, and back to write to you.
I would like to pickup on your” Tourism” project, tell me more about it. This idea of luggage, as a metaphor, intrigues me; we cary our luggage with us at all times!
“In my city Gypsies had their form of survival too; they would go about the city carrying their whitening tools, and music with them and offering their services to all (they were specialized in cleaning, they call it whitening, aluminium and copper saucepans and spoons), we use them as a metaphor for carrying our luggage of the past.”
I had my luggage, inspected my times and for different reasones:
“I smelt the ink of each of its pages. It was so new, so crisp. And I counted the number of its light-green and purple pages a few times. I touched its embossed lettering and its leathery shoulders slowly. It was my first ever, and I had only just received it. It was the recognition of my place in the universe. My passport was my icon of other worlds. My passport was dark blue, and it was valid for only a precious six months. In the first light of the next morning, I moved my fingers under my pillow to touch it; to be sure that it was still there, where I had left it the night before. In the evening, again I started to look at it, trying to read the invisible maps in its blank visas. My thoughts were swimming to the beyond. Suddenly I noticed a spelling mistake. They had printed an E instead of an I to write my first name.
The officer in charge had translated the first letter of my Arabic name into E. After some very long consideration, the officer took out his shaving blade (which he kept in his desk for such occasions) and scratched the E out. Then he drew an I with a black pen. It looked massive, and to make things look official, he stamped it with red ink.”
Imagine this I; one letter, but it gave me many hours of investigations in many borders. One day I would like to do something about borders. (Have you been abroad, did you experience the boarders?)
My Buddhist friend always says that difficulties are for a reason; they make one thinks differently! I very much appreciate your (rough mood) as you called it, on your thoughts about Travelling Birds, and think it is great that you made your struggle clear “the problem is simply the difference between the 2 words: Difficult and Impossible” , as you said, without patronising - difficulties are every where.
I would very much like to see the rest of your upside down turtle friend, I like the way you draw on the conversation between, the infra-ordenary and the extra-ordenary.
I am very sad to learn of the death of Shadi Moudarres, and the story of Alhallaj (I knew of them both, but never met them), and by the way I recently saw few pieces by Kaiyali and Moudaress here in London at the Saatchi Gallery.
Take your time when it comes to film your environment, I hope all is going well with your advertising designs “to still alive”; I have drawn 1000s of portraits in the streets of St Petersburg, Moscow, Cambridge, and Oxford! And much later I started making other portraits:
“Without action there is no reason” was the title of the piece Professor Strathern commissioned in 1999. It was based on her hands and inspired by her research as anthropologist in Papua New Guinea. Professor Strathern presented to me a Kina shell as material for thought. The kina shell was made of wood, bamboo, mud, gold-lip pearl shell and was dyed with natural red or ochre colours. She told me about the Kina ceremonial exchange events, which resonate with giving and taking. I thought of my culture and the way we look at our two hands; the right for giving and left for taking. In my piece I used zinc plates and using acid etching, I made a hollow relief of the left hand and a proud relief of the right one, and juxtaposed all to form a ceremonial line suggesting the shape which Kina exchange event takes.
Issam
