Hazem,

Hope all is well with the start of 2010, and you were/are inspired with your work.

I have been very busy with my design for the analemma, and today I had very good meeting/cosultation with a friend sculpture to talk about the possibilities for the analemma, and I showed him my latest ideas/models, which I am going to present on the 13th January for discussion/approval, and the whole piece should be ready in place at the start of June 2010! and it might need many hands to be there; design h, mathematical, surveyor (the location), stone carving or bronze, glass, plumping, electrical and of course the installation hands.

Tomorrow I am running a workshop for school teachers (so I’ll wear my theatre design hat!) the workshop is a collaboration between myself and a friend who is a theatre direcor.

As for IAA proposals, although details are going to be communicated at the end of January, we have option to submit number of individual and/or collaborative proposals (preferebly, triggered by our dialogue) and the research and development for this project is from Fab- May 2010.

I wonder if you feel putting one or more collaborative proposals? if so what do you think about the following subjects: rivers, places, childhood and/or borders? or maybe you have something you would like to explore collaboratively?

Let me know

P.S. Again, I tried to watch your documentary (Stone Bird) on this link:

http://www.goethe.de/ins/eg/prj/abs/syr/ar5369612.htm but alas, couldn’t!)

Issam

Hazem,

Hope you are awake now, and managed to celebrate your Happy,29th/30th birthday!

There was a suggestion to extend our conversation beyond tomorrow, thought I’d like that, but I have too many projects in my plate, and should say that it was great few weeks; conversing with you, knowing something of your mental and “Damascus” landscapes, and seeing your visual thinking through your moving images and still ones . (Hope you are not disappointed by this)

Tomorrow, I am rather busy, and we are all (minus Kindah) going to visit friends for the New Year eve. You’ll welcome the  2010  2 hours ahead of us,  and  I hope I’ll manage to write to you before the British New year !

I am very fond of the Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, and of his “spiral” writing. And as we are at the end of our dialogue, It might be time to tell you more about my beginning/luggage:

“I grew up in the southern volcanic mountains of Syria, and my childhood was shaped by the poverty of the place, the people’s highly developed art of survival and the lack of every thing. My first teachers were very special; they had never been educated at Art Schools, in fact at any school. Some I never, or barely, met.

My uncle Suleiman, my mother’s brother, who I never met, formed, with his resourcefulness, my early vision; he discovered, at the time of hardship, an unusual source of income, unexploded bombs! At the time of the French Mandate in Syria, many of these bombs were left unexploded, and my uncle found his way to make spoons, and coffee pots out of them. Until one day, sadly, he met his death, when he found his last unexploded bomb, but his legacy lives on.

This is the way he was brought up, and he had to follow my Lebanese grandmother’s school of thought. She, in turn, couldn’t do anything else but pass it on; she had her way of surviving the mountains’ cold nights, and made a rather thick quilt out of the remains of the family’s worn-out clothes. Though I barely met her, as she had died before I learnt to hold a pencil, her legacy “the quilt” formed my early nightscape, and my first encounter with abstract form.”

Here is the remains of my grandmother’s quilt:

“As a child, I was a keen learner! I started to go to school when I was five [thinking about your parents registering your birth-year later than it was, so you “wine” an extra year in the school], but had so many difficulties learning to write the alphabet of my tongue, particularly the first letter of my name “I” . My mother, then well in her forties, had hardly any form of schooling, set out to help me forming the first letter of my name. She asked me to show her my “ع”, and I did. She held my hand in her hand and together we “drew” the letter “ع”. She asked me to do it again. My mother was very generous, she made me understand that this letter was not just a letter, part of a word, a fragment of a whole language, but a picture. It took me many attemtpts, with and without her hands, and then I did, not very well, but I did, and since I started to learn how to form my “eye”.”

Many moons later, my mother was living alone, my father died; we all left home and were away, I thought I must teach her how to read and write. I started to teach her. Of course, she had many difficulties learning to write the 28 letters of our alphabet. When we arrived at forming the 18^th letter, the letter “ع” I held her hand, and I reminded her with the way, when I was little, she held my hand and together we “drew” it. She couldn’t remember; she was so keen to carry on learning the remaining ten.”

Here is my mother hands “drawing”:

Here is an urn (to keep  water)made her hands too:

“The smell of the orange skin burning on the top of the stove, marked the transition from one year to another, this was our New Year Eves’ ritual [Our friend has an open fire but no stove, so I’ll be thinking about the smell of orange skin burning tomorrow]. In front of the stove my father used to roll his cigarettes very beautifully. His smoking ceremony carved a yellow tinted hole between his index and middle fingers, and blocked his heart with smoke. In the evenings occasionally, friends of the family and relatives came to visit, and we all sat round the stove, the kerosene lamp burned and a story-telling event starting to unfold. My father had many stories to tell; he spent his life away fighting against the French.

He was absent, and my mother had her mountain to climb; she was married to my father, who was, in turn, older than her father. So for us all to survive, my mother had to rely upon her hands; she was the daughter of my Lebanese grandmother. Among many things, she used to bake and sell bread, she sewed, wove and prayed. She used to make a sweet out of semolina for me to sell in the street. In my turn, I served it on newspaper cuts, with a flattened spoon, and to Zena, my regular first customer, I used to give extra pieces. Zena and I used to look at the mirror images of the newspaper’s printed words, imprinted on the bottom of the semolina sweet. Shadows were long at the early mornings of my summer holidays; the silence of the street was broken by the sound of donkeys’ hooves and the morning greetings, to both of us, by passing people, heading eastward to the mountain.

I am the youngest of five children, two girls and three boys. My older brother, Shaher, was a calligrapher. He used to write signs on buses, cars, shop-fronts, he even eloquently wrote, with his fine brushes and black paint, on the front wall of our house “The Calligrapher Shaher”. I was impressed by it, I found a stick and black shoe-polish and underneath I wrote “and Issam”. My brother did not notice it, or pretended not to. A few days later, I went to cut my hair. Adel, the barber knew of my brother, but had no money to pay his services, so he asked me to write a sign on his shop-front. Though it was only two words “Salon Al-Iعtidal”, it took me many hours to do it.  I, secretly, used my brother’s brushes and paint, and by the end of the day I was paid with a free haircut.”

Here is the front of our house - notice ” The Calligrapher Shaher”!

Here is a sign I did when I was 12, and it is still there!

“I never knew the future of my past. Not unlike the gypsies in my city who go about carrying their whitening tools, and music with them, I do carry my mountains and I know that my uncle Suleiman, my Lebanese grandmother, my mother and her hands, stories of my father, “the Calligrapher Shaher”, the roof of our old house, the lack of everything, my toy TV, my first finger painting, Adel the barber, Naseeh the piano-accordion player, my silent teachers, my half-room, my fragile I. not E, my bad teachers, Yura and the squatters artists in the old Parisian factory, my lack of English idiom, my Group See, The ADC theatre skip, Gilgamesh, the British Museum, my students, the Mayans, the Cubans, “Cambridge is a Puzzle”, Professor Strathern’s Kina shell, my wife Candelaria and boys Mourad and Sami, the knot-hole in the dark attic of my studio and the old 12 volume Encyclopaedia Britannica, are all part of my DNA as an artist.”

Issam

Today is my birth day

I was born in 29-12-1979, but my parents wanted to write on my identity card that I was born in one one 1980, to (win) a new year for school. Any way my birthday still (not clear) for me

Today I wrote to you what I am feeling, and when I entered to our dialogue, I saw your rich new letter, but I think i will read it tomorrow (I just read some headline and it looks great, especially the part of Mourad and Sami

Any way here is what I wrote

Dear Issam, here we are near the end. Today, I am thinking about the time…we have been talking during more than 5 weeks…I felt it as if it was one moment before…(like a small movement of eye). I could not sleep, I met my girl friend feeling with mountains of love, I hugged her strongly like a baby  missing his mother…I was feeling with this strange feeling…the time passing…the life like a sand clock ending…with a lot of love…very very big love

The people around me happy…like me…but I think by different sources…BUT the most important is that we are happy…actually I am happy because of love feeling

Always love build and hate destroy…even when I was feeling hate…I needed to convert this feeling to love to be able to build…the love of my work

I do not know if that because of the space or the gravity of the stars…but almost during those days of every year I was feeling similar

The end of any thing tells you that some time passed, and some time passed after some time passed…end after end…ce la vie

Now I can understand why this project…why this dialogue…simply (as I think) to break piece of the wall, to know each other more, to discover the wonderful sides of our (enemy)(not you Issam) because almost, I refuse you, when I do not know you, and maybe that is the main problem on our misery earth, we fight each other without giving ourselves the chance to know each other, so we build the false image or the image which TVs want us to have

Simply it is a problem of missing the knowledge, and I think this project is a step on the road to know each other (on earth) more

so sleepy

Hazem  

Hazem,

Your visual poem is a good story board using stills,  I like the image relating to “a soft light has fallen on the ground through the plants”; its 1000 suns, followed by 1000 cactus fruit, (many cactus species are night blooming!). I couldn’t make my mind about Damascus; if it is blooming ( thinking about its night images) or questioning? Beautiful images with “the neighbours are so close”, Kinda sounds very thoughtful,  your mother has lovely smile and another portraiture -using feet/shoes.

do you write poems?

It depends on what you mean by write; no I am not a “poet” but i draw!

“Drawing has always been the way I respond to whatever comes before my senses. In my early years in Cambridge, drawing had to become (due to my lack of English idiom) an extra arm in the process of communication. For an artist, a Syrian and not an English speaker, Cambridge was not paved with gold. Many times I packed my few belongings and many paintings and thought to leave, but had nowhere to go.”

“The walls of our house were made from black basalt. The roof was made from a single metal beam and rows of bamboo poles covered with layers of soil. If somebody walked on the top of it, our roof showered us with earth. I loved our old scruffy house. It consisted only of the east room and the west one. In spring we had a constant supply of Chamomile growing out of its roof. In winter, we had to press the soil with a very heavy curved basalt roller to prevent the rain from leaking. Throughout the years, water and snow made the ceiling damp and stained it. When the sun closed its eye, and the kerosene lamp burned, a big light circle was cast on the bamboo poles showing up the damp patches. This circle of light was my first and only story book. Every winter I read a new chapter. I think we had enough of the water leaks and earth showers, so backwards we turned the clock of our house – it was demolished! Since, as an artist, I strive to re-create my first story book.”

Here is triptych called Flakes

Here is some images from a sketch-book (in the south of France)

“To draw on books, particularly in Cambridge, could be seen as a sacrilegious action; many people enjoyed my marks and the process of going through the pages. Others saw it as mutilation. I know that my strict fifth class teacher wouldn’t approve of it too.”

The following is a piece called ” One plus eleven = two started on 25^th January 2007 and was completed in June 07. The idea of this piece is to mark daily, the sequence of my thoughts, by making marks and drawings on each page of an old 12 volume Encyclopaedia Britannica. The daily process consists of drawing from life, from images or from reflecting on memories of sounds, smells of things I have touched and been touched by: exploring a diversity of approaches to mark-making territories, such as Arabic script, pattern, collage, geometrical forms, mono-print, cutting through the page, sanding and tearing the surface of the paper, drawing with my “wrong” hand, or upside down, and deliberately using a variety of inks, oils, pencils, wax and turpentine.

Looking at each volume separately, each page presented a space to react against and play with, a palimpsest of bleed-marks from my work on the adjacent page, texts, illustrations and newly applied marks, creating a fusion of heart-beat and “mind-beat”. One idea might live for a short time through one, two or three drawings, but revive a few weeks later; another could run for much longer, generating many drawings, and then vanish, never to return.”

But I think as a painter:

As for Mourad and Sami (I am sure that your parents always talk about you and Azzam in same sentence!) Mourad is in his year 7 and Sami is in year 5, they are now on holidays and helping me with the Analemma ;her is Sami’s thought:

and his inspiration/interpretation of the analemma:

This morning I saw this image which reminded me of his interpretation too:

And here is Mourad’s thought on the Analemma using water:

But he wanted to share with you his book on Macbeth (when he was in year 5):

Hope you are able to read the images and the words, all images are on B/W similar to chess board (watch for the back cover; “Simple but brilliant”, The Guardian!)

As for my work on the analemma,  here is some of my sketches in 2 & 3 D:

And I am working with Dr Frank King, who made many sundials, here is one in London, Paternoster Square:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Paternoster_Square.jpg

And her is a ” book” by my wife Candelaria (who works with ceramics) on the ground of the Institute of Astronomy:

I am ready for my coffee and Kindah is enjoying a nap near the fire place:

Talk soon,

Issam

 She was sitting alone

 At the same time, in the other side he was sitting alone

 At the same time, he was enjoying eating his ice cream

 And a bee was flying

 And Kinda was dreaming  about…

 And a cat was staring…

 And tow lovers…were…

 At the same moment, a tired hardworking young man got a sleep

 And the bee, kept flaying

  And a big fight happened between Raed and George.

 And a big fly was there…

 BUT the bee kept flying…

 A fresh air entered from the window…

 And a soft light has fallen on the ground through the plants.

 Not this plants…

 By the way, i can feel that she will be a good mother

  I uses to read the history, but in Damascus…i was touching (him)

 And touching…

 …Another things

 And another things…

And the neighbors are so close…

  And the light is so close…

 Hey man…why you are looking at me…

 And you…can you take your stupid photo quickly…

 I am going to play…please do not follow me…

 shit!! you still following me!!

 OK. then try to take a good one.

 How this machine works??

 Anyway, i got bored from you again.

SUDENLY

Some one made it…

 And…

  And…

 At the same moment…my friend was ready to leave the ancient place to the (modern world)

 And Kinda decided something related to the future…

 And my mother smiled happily…

  While the light was discovering the face of Lisa…

   And i was flying with this angel…

 And my mother still carrying the clean clothes as if she was hugging a baby…

And the life goes on even with those children…

 Sorry man, you took a lot of photos…can i get one?

 Me too please…

Hazem

Hazem

Hazem

Dear Issam, i will try to find your half room tomorrow morning, but my brother Azzam will travel to Cairo today, and he asked me to borrow him my camera, so i am worried if i can not film it to you…also i liked to film some parts of Damascus especially to you, but now i am really not sure of the ability of all of that.

Anyway Abu Nabil and Um Nail will still a landmark to find the (castle), and for other things i wished to film them to you i think my (visual poem) will help me to tell (all) what i want to say.

really i feel little sad for being us near the end of our trip…

but to be honest during all my day i was thinking about my visual poem and simply i know that i will be crazy (again) today, but i decided to do it as i imagined, but i will send it in a different letter.

i liked the reflections, i could feel that the sun is really fresh…

i have three questions to you Issam

1-can you tell me about Mourad nowadays?…i want to know more about him, but in this days/

2-do you write poems?

3-can you show me some sketches of your new Analemma project?

Hazem

It is closing and the dawn is appearing…i would like to write to but i think, i will do that early in the-afternoon- that i will try to run out of my editors…

that i would like to comment about your last letter(s)…BUT

The owner of the cafe net is just looking at me to (get out) of his shop…

Good night\morning

ع

Hazem

After 1998 and before the turn 1 in 2002 i has been there…

Simply..my dear eye ع i will look as a liar…but i will tell you about this -big- project…soon

Again i can depends on the image to talk instead of me.

Here is the cover

and here is also our meditating friend…

[flickr video=4217735570]

[flickr video=4217760682]

[flickr video=4217774156]

Hazem

Here is my experimental -Blue coma-

As some other (promises) i will try to tell you about it later, but let the image talk.

In this part i imagined inside the body of the mother…but the child still able to hear the far sounds of the elephant in pain… also the far sound of the ambulance.

[flickr video=4217701450]

In this other part, me and my mother went in a real case to get the real feeling…

[flickr video=4217717452]

Hazem

Also I sent to you (oneday) the cover of 31 minutes and 52 seconds with Abu Issam

And here is a closer image to his eyes, translation into English is semi impossible

[flickr video=4217665802]

[flickr video=4217681244]

Hazem

Dear Issam, I just leaved my editing room, I am working on the sound of my new experimental, but  somehow I am still thinking about our dialogue, I have a big desire to write to you…and I have a strange feeling that we just began, it is similar to life feeling…when you understand it…it finish

Also I feel missing you. with little sad, so I will let my self free to send and write…I am going to play now…I will try to do things I promised you, but if I did not, please forgive me…now I feel more what this project mean

Now, I am back to land

After the turn 2…as I told you the matters went stranger…

Hazem

I wanted to send you my congratulations for winning  a production support for your documentary (Childhood of the place) and that your name is with both Malas (I remember seeing his Dreams of the City just before I left ~~~Syria), and Almaleh too, well done.

Since I wrote to you last, I went to the Institute of Astronomy, and borrowed few books on Sundials, and have been dreaming about the design for my Analemma as a sun palimpsest. spending some time with my family and other time sketching/ making quick model for my design; it is really great to have a project in mind, as I scan my surroundings for inspiration, sometimes in trivial objects.

Today  the sun was a wake, and shadows were long. We went for a walk, and I took some images that I would like to share with you as well as some other thoughts too,

We were in a playground by the river and I was thinking of your recent images of (I live in Syria) and (the power of the moment). It struck me, and maybe I am incorrect, that you don’t need to ask friends, relatives or passers-by for written permission to use their images!?

Did you know that here, I had to be so careful that “innocent bystanders” being caught by my lens!? I couldn’t take any images of children playing, so I looked else where at the surrounding:

And derelict places ( not many left in Cambridge, as the city is looked after, sometimes too much!)

And at reflections (where i feel I am drawing)

Talking about reflection, I was thinking that this year’s remaining days are numbered! And, sadly,  we are to end our dialogue soon. Maybe we need to start reflecting back to the last weeks journey:

Damascus, Barada, Cam, Bab Tuma, half-rooms, Faces, stupid happy faces, childhood, Abu Hajar (by the way, I couldn’t watch your documentary Stone Bird, with the link posted), Moudarres, Mattoot, innocent bystanders, light, sun palimpsest, bridges, smiles, borders, passports, sun, snow, shadows, analemma, moments, memories, places and many many luggage! This is what I’ll take/remember.

Issam

   Is life always difficult?

  We look beautiful…just because we are together

  The light shows my insider tears…

  The same light shows my clear smile…

  During the break of the childhood…

  During the same break.

  And the city still there…

  And the glass of the bus still dusty.

    And we still have our happy moments…

  And another happy moments…

   And our happiness

  Loneliness…

    And anti loneliness…

Hazem

I do not know why I liked to write today to you and to Mourad.

I could feel that you are in love of him, and by somehow I was able to see Mourad.

He looks to me a beautiful and Lovely child, with big questions around his head.

For my passport, I made a new one.

Sorry for being so late to write to you, I was so busy, yesterday night I was putting the final editing touches to my new experimental (4 minutes long), and till now I did not finish it, that I still working on music and sound mix, any way it near to be finished, and I am feeling good for its birth…

By the way, you can watch my documentary (Stone Bird) –all of it- on this link:

http://www.goethe.de/ins/eg/prj/abs/syr/ar5369612.htm

It is free for just about one month.

Issam, the questions Mourad asked…are the questions of the life…not you, not me…any one can answer.

My mind is so tired again with this short film, so I would like to write but I do not have the energy for that…I feel all my energy went through this 4 minutes, I will try to send part of it soon, so please let me dialogue with you –till I be recharged- by my lovely favorite easy languages…the image

Why I am happy…

I am so happy. I won a production support for my documentary (Childhood of the place)

It is a documentary in 3 parts, I made the first part in 2004 (24 minutes) and I presented it in the international festival of Aubagne in France, I was unable to make Part 2 and 3 for production matters. The film now will be continued by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), I was happy also for another matter, that the (AFAC) supported Mohammad Malas and Nabil Almaleh besides to me in this year. So I was happy for being my name was with those big teachers.    

I will tell you soon about (Childhood of the place) and show you parts of it.

Here is the announcement:

http://www.arabculturefund.org/arb/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=133:winners-announcement&catid=1:latest-news

Habibi Issam I will look for your half room very soon, I am just waiting for some time, and also I will film something special for you. And please accept my visual dialogue during these 2 days that I want to take you closer to Damascus and to all Syria.

Hazem

Just managed to find some images of my half-room.

Issam

some images of the outside snow at home.

But I am thinking about sundials!

Did you know that there is one hidden sundial in Damascus! the sundial of the astronomer ibn al-Shatir being ‘discovered’ in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus. Actually, the dial shown was a 19th century reproduction: the damaged original is in the Damascus Museum. It dates to 1371/2 and is widely thought to be the earliest sundial in existence with a polar-pointing gnomon and hence it is the forerunner of all our ‘scientific’ dials. The dial puts most modern sundials to shame for the mass of detailed furniture which it has on its large stone surface. It is well illustrated and described in Mark Lennox-Boyd’s book Sundials.

You could see this documentary about Science and Islam by Prof Jim Al-Khalili:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFH1lz0212o

Eye

Hazem,

If you are going to take your camera for a walk in Old Damascus, I wonder if you would be able to find my Half-room!?

Now, it might not be easy to find it; the red dot is roughly speaking where it is located:

If you are coming from Bab Tuma, as soon as you arrive to Al Qemariya Quarter, in your left there is many shops and a baker,  further down there is a gate, in your left too, (small one and  dark brown) if front of it there is a wood carver (say hello from me, if he is still a live! You could ask him if this is the house of Um Nabeel and Abu Nabeel). If so,  as soon as you open the gate (there is many lodgers in the house, some of them artists too) and if you enter the house you could see (my castle) in front of you , squeezed between the ground floor and the first one, with a small balcony (shaped as quarter of a circle) and two windows, in your right there is a long narrow stairs, if you climb them,  half way in your left is the entrance (the very dark kitchen on you right, and on your left is the quarter of a circle balcony). The door of my half-room used to be green, and have very small lock! Last time I went there with my wife, we managed to knock at the door and have a coffee with new occupant (she used to be teacher of English at one of the nearby schools!)

If you have the time to find my half-room, I think you’ll enjoy it, and you might be rewarded with a cup of coffee too!

Talk soon

Issam

Hazem,

Sorry, I was wearing another “hat” for the last few day, I was preoccupied by designing the Analemma, and today, I had very productive morning with the mathematician.

Congratulations to your father’s (Takreem) for his life’s work on literature and poetry, I’ll be delighted to read some of his work, let me have a link to his work if possible.

Seeing you and your family reminded me with mine, now I am going to tell you this story about my children:

“In November 2000 I shared an exhibition with my then three-year-old son Mourad, which we called “is / am”. We both worked on old book-covers. This is the introduction to the show:

“He is, therefore I am. The son partakes of the father. But father can also partake of son. Issam Kourbaj (37) has drawn on the painting of his son Mourad (3) to explore images of his own childhood. The son paints the father who paints the son and, in turn, his own father, re-tracing the child’s first faltering steps in paint back to his own origins in the black mountains of southern Syria. As big Kourbaj responds to small Kourbaj’s pictures, he has flashbacks to buried memories of family, relatives, shopkeepers, trees, toys, brushes, machinery, cats, calligraphy, boats, and chewing gum.”

My son was the artist, and I was following his foot steps. He had no ladders, unlike me. I had many ladders and rather heavy to carry under my skin. The collaboration with my son was an invitation for me to drop them. This was the import of my contribution to Radio 3’s short talks series “Work In Progress”.

In July 2001, I introduced a retrospective exhibition of my work called “Nothing is Constant except Change” from 1990-2000 with this chronology:

1990 I sketched in a bedroom. 91, I began searching for a studio and found Candelaria (my wife). 92, I went to Mexico and discovered colour. 93, I went to the theatre. 94, I learned to cook rice. 95, I returned from Cuba to make clouds and chairs. 96, I moved into the Old Laboratory at Newnham College. 97, I exhibited at Kettle’s Yard, went back to Syria, found a piano in a skip, and my son Mourad was born. 98, I glued my coat to a painting and sold my sketchbook to the British Museum. 99, my teacher died (Moudarres), I watched workmen painting yellow lines, and made kwads. 2000 I took up aerial photography, painted on old book covers with Mourad, and my second son Sami was born.

On the morning of Monday 24th Feb 2003, my then 5 years old son Mourad woke up with an inquisitive mind, and asked me:

How the day comes?

It was a rather universal question, I didn’t dare to answer. I asked him back, what do you think? He replied:

Is it the same as snow?

God throws snowflakes,

and God throws light flakes.

Then God throws clouds,

and at night, he throws stars.

But when it rains,

God throws rain flakes.

And when it is windy,

God throws paper.

When it is frosty,

God throws something,

I do not know,

but it is frost!

Since then, I couldn’t help it; I took his thought on board and still reflect on it some years later.”

Many thanks for the dusty memories of Damascus, and for reminding me of many of its corners (I realised that  the Faculty of fine art was near the Al Tahreer Square, not near the 7 Fountains as in one of my early posts!)

I could see that you have had many stories about borders; your story, scenes of a disco in Copenhagen, your Camera with its “erotic” content, your lost passport, the Danish police station, Istanbul and finally entering Damascus with papers written in English, and a month of being sleep! Did you ever find your passport?

I very much liked the quality of your (the Power of the moment) black and white images, the all have something joyous, but deprived chilhood, particularly (the 2nd picture) the one with the boy dangling from the swing, it has rather poignant.

As for the power of the faces, I wanted to ask where in Syria are these “rich” landscapes of faces? again I found both the images of the lady with the glasses and the children in the background and the man who is selling “nothing”  in his dark shop and empty scales  very moving.

Talk soon, and tell me why are very happy!?

Issam

Dear Issam, i am so happy just now, and i will tell why tomorow (just to check it)

Today damascus was in fog also with some dust…so really it looks strange. but i dicided to take my Camera to take some photos to you, i will take videos in Bab Tooma and else…it is just warming up.

first at all here are 2 photos with my parents and my brother (the tall one) in an ocasion -Takreem- for my father s life work in litreture and poetry.

and here is a short tour in Damascus

here is the faculty of fine arts in Albaramkeh

and here I am above the president bridge -Jesr Alraiees-

And here is Barada -still alive-

And here looks the four seasons -the new hotel-

Here is Dar Alsalam in Alshaalan

And Then i turned to the direction of Alsham palace, near the Church of Franciscan…

Here i am near Damer -for sweet-

Here i am in Yousef Alazma square -Dawwar Almuhafaza-

Here i am in Albahsa…

Here i was in the bus, and passed near Altahreer square near the the old faculty of fine arts, so i took a fast photo from the dusty window of the bus…

In this short tour i did not liked to take artistic photos, i just…Photos

next tour i think i will go to the ancient city.

Hazem

Dear Issam I liked your story of the litter E so much, it is a synopsis to a lot of our problems here.

And I think the bad thing became a good thing, that it will be (useless) after 6 months, and your case of watching the details of the passport is a mixture of your nature (a visual artist goes always into details)  and (a man thinking a lot about what is coming, goes always into details).

Yes Issam I have been many times at boards, Paris, Rome, Bari, and Braga…etc

But a nice story happened with onetime.

I was in Copenhagen in the international festival of documentary, I was happy with my new HD camera and without any exaggeration, I struggled to bring it, and my friend Hazem Ibrahim helped me to complete its price…simply I was in a disco with my friend (film maker from Jordan) I asked him to keep it with him until I go and bring a drink, and when I got back I asked him where it is?  He said, it is here under the jacket in the corner, and he added: here are the Danish people, they do not need anything, so why they will take it, for a minute a believed his idea, and when felt doubt about it, I went there, under the jacket, (and there were many things around it)…there was nothing, more than 6 hours of filming in Copenhagen, more than 5 months to collect 2000 $, and not only that, I remembered that I was in the morning in the airport to fix the ticket for traveling tomorrow… and the passport was inside the bag. So for me it was a real heavy moment, especially the great rushes I got it filming in Copenhagen and the erotic museum, I get back to my friend Malina, she was sleep, but she got up when I entered the home, I looked tired, sad, and silent, she hug me be able to sleep…and I slept

By the way: I like the Danish people very, very much, I saw them very kind and hardworking and polite…

Next scene, I am in the Danish police station to get a report of losing a passport.

Next scene, I am in Istanbul to transit to Damascus, and playing with my bag, and missing Rami Farah that I was alone but before I was with him in the same airport and we laughed sooo much, that we were playing with our bags as we were dancing on the snow…

Next scene, I am in the airport of Damascus to enter without a passport, just with papers written in English unable to help me so much…finally I passed to home…and slept for a month.

Hazem

Dear Issam, Here is the power of the faces…lets discuss that

That is my small street near my home (in Alabbasieen square, not so far of Bab Tooma) after rain, i was walking to my office (editing room) but i liked the view, so i get back to home and took those photos

Here is the street

And here is the garden near my home as i was playing during my childhood

I read your words Issam, i like to write to you, but now i am sleepy like those cats under this line, so i think i will sleep in 1 hour and wake up at the dawn time.

Have a nice time Mr.E (and red over it)

let me call you my brother

Hazem

As for the Analemma, I am meeting a mathematician on Monday so he could calculate the shape of it, so it could read time!

I’ll keep you posted.

Issam

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

Dear Issam, what’s up about your coming project on the Analemme?

I liked the story with Mudarress, it is touching, and I do not exaggerate if I said to you, I was able to imagine it as a cinematic scene full of ambiance, music, and silence, especially that I know the studio of Mudarress, so maybe this scene will be good one day if a fiction film was made about his rich life.

Also I knew his son Shadi, he died also…in mysterious circumstances.

For me I liked the painting of Mudarress, Mustafa Alhallaj, and Kaiyali…

Also Alhallaj died (sorry for this news) in a very dramatic way, that his studio burned and he was drawing his (wall painting) about 2 m x more than 30 m (I have a filming of this work,but the format was not supported in editing program) it was his life project, so when he saw the fire he ran away out, but he remembered this great work which he was going to finish it, so he get back to the burning place, and get the big painting out, but not himself, so he gave his life to this work…

I remember when I was visiting him in his studio in Alshahabndar square, also when he visited my exhibition in Alrakka.

 He got a new wife when he was 80 years old (or more), and laughing with him in Alriwak caffe…simply he is full of life, running like a horse.

I liked to make a documentary about him, but now I always think about a fiction reflect his beautiful life.

It is raining from 2 days up to now, so I was unable to go filming for you.

I am going to my office –my editing room- to make some advertising designs to still alive.

Hazem

Issam, I want to write to you about Damascus, Mudarres, the places, the Cam, Christmas…etc

But I have no more power now; I will try to film to you what you asked me. I understand what you want and what you fell, do you know Issam, you are right, Damascus is a charming city, and she missed you.

The dawn finished now, and the noise of the cars get back to life.

Hazem

I remembered a story I wore it to my friend Rami Farah when he was in USA in a visit, that I wrote to him this story and I do not know why, and the funny thing that the attachment failed to his e-mail, so he did not read it, I will tell him to read it from here, the other thing is that I forgot what turtle means when I wrote it, so i wrote it to him in Arabic (Sulhoufat), and here I will copy the story as I wrote just by adding turtle before every (Sulhoufat)

It is a very strange story…I think so        

Here is the letter:

Dear Rami I tried to write to u in Arabic but it was easier in English and that is the life babe, we always like to go easier… Even this easier is a copy from the first easier and do you Know why I did that (I mean to copy easier and paste it when I want to write another easier) do you know why..? All the human being has to answer me the same answer because there is one right answer of that question.

One day when I was walking near the street I saw a turtle (sulhoufat) and it was upside down on its back and it was in pain because she was unable to move or walk or eat…it was only able to pray and talk to god. I looked to this turtle (sulhoufat) and also it recognized me –maybe we where together during the break of the Childhood. And this break was ended and our feeling too…so I looked at it and it recognized me and for one moment we felt in love and our memories passed as a film through our eyes. And at the same moment this memories was fallen from our eyes on the ground and they were broken exactly as our souls. From that moment we became tow strange things in the life and even our looks looked strange. And in this moment I decided to help it that I felt that it was in pain and I know the pain it is very calm and active. and I know the pain that he always was changing me and not to better but to worst, and I know the pain that it was always following me and I know it because it was me…and the turtle (sulhoufat) was in pain and I was sure of that and that was sure of me. In this moment I decided to help my self through it and to change its position and to be friends again, and when I moved my hand to catch it my hand was changing into green color through its way and I was frighten from its color and tow eyes appeared on the hand with a small mouth and without nose. and my hand said to me…look my babe I will be straight with u and tell you the truth, when you will touch this turtle(sulhoufat) all of you will be in this color and I am just a sample to know what you are going to do in this moment my stupid guy. So please think again before you do that, and when you will do that and your color become green like me now it will be that point of no turning back. So let it on its back. Here I said to myself if that was right I will lose my color and be a new strange thing that I was already strange. But if I did not, I always will feel that I am afraid of doing what I want to do. But I can remember simply that I was like this during all my life and there is nothing new in that, I will just continue this life style. So I decided to do nothing and keep walking. After I walked some steps the turtle (sulhoufat) shouted to me: hey, hey my friend you did not remember me we were together when we were children, do you remember? I said yes of course I remember but I do not want to help you because my green hand told me everything. The turtle (sulhoufat) said: I listened to what it said to you but I need to help me without touching me. Believe me you will never touch me and become green like another friends tried to help me before, everything I want you to do is to kill me. Please do not let me like this. Please just bring this big stone and through it on me and I will die soon and your color will never change. But I said to it no I cannot do that. I cannot kill you. But the turtle (sulhoufat) said: for all our lovely moments and memories do these. Here I looked to my hand to tell me what shall I do but it was normal and without eyes and mouth. Suddenly I wanted to run fast just to be far of this turtle (sulhoufat).

I run and run fast and faster until I arrived to a river so blue and so nice…I felt rest and rest. I laid on my back and my eyes to the blue sky. And when I looked to the left side I saw the turtle (sulhoufat) near me upside down.

Hazem Alhamwi

28-3-2008

I was filming this documentary since 2003 and I think it will need another 1 or 2 years.

In this film I am following the stories of my friends who traveled to another countries…some of them want to get back but some others will never back. In this film I am presenting what they are feeling, and they shall do.

The turtle:                                                       

Because you are between difficult and impossible, you will be unable to be fast. And you will be slow, and when you are slow, day after day you will become a turtle, slow as a turtle, but the matter will not end here, you will be a turtle in trouble (upside down) so you will move yourself a lot but you will not move from your place, for me it was the hardest and most similar symbol of the new generation here, and it was the entrance of the film.

Your upside down turtle friend

Hazem 

[flickr video=4192885740]

Hazem,

I like your name for wisdom tooth; I think “tooth of mind” is much better, as one expects to lose one’s mind after loosing it!

Hope you feel better soon.

Your caricatures in Turn 2 and Faces of my country are charged and cinematic, and Abu Hajar is a philosopher; it is very good piece of him among machines, among the dead and imitating animals. As for the other 2 tracks of Mattooot and Never, it struck me how life forces some to survive with few words!

I know what you mean when you said that if Fillini was anywhere in the 3rd World he might have ended up selling vegetables, but I am sure the material you have in Damascus, though might seem local, but to my eye has a universal presence.

This reminds me with my time in Damascus, hen I was student, one of my teachers (Laila Nser) asked us to go around the Old city sketching, she just arrived from Paris, and, typically, we came back complaining that there is nothing to see , nothing to draw. She said it is not what you draw, it is how you draw! and added that we shouldn’t  think that the parisian scene is better; many artist would have loved to walk around the Old City observing its dynamics. So we packed our sketch-pads,  sharpen our pencils and took our eyes for a walk, it was early morning, and  Damascus was still sleepy, but many workers waiting to be picked, so we hanged around them drawing their silent waiting.

I long for a walk in the Old City of Damascus, losing myself in its mazes, by the river; either after midnight or the first hours of the morning. Human through out the ages were interested in building citied by the water, and even bringing water to their interior landscape, Damascus is famous for it’s yards and fountains; would you be able (when you have some time) to reintruduce me to “your” Damascus, Barada, and Bab Tuma as if I never seen/been there?

I went to the river today and took few images to introduce you to the Cam, including moving images (hope they work! If not, you can reach at flickr’s Imagine Art After images) As there is a moment when someone walking on the bridge, covered the sun rays!

I thought this chair sound a chair for thinking!

And this is the bridge on the Cam that Cambridge is named after.

Thinking about  bridges, I wonder if this might be a theme to play with?

I am here sitting thinking about my coming project on the Analemma; designing it in a way the it could harvest the sun as light as well as energy, so the piece could work at night as well as during the day (by using solar panels).

Now the day light is gone, and Christmas street lights are switched on! I avoid walking in the City Centre as shoppers are frantic; and the meaning of giving is lost and replaced with consumerism/wast.  Not my favourite time of the year!

Issam

Dear Issam here are 2 tracks of -Mattooot-
almost i will send a translation of the first part for our reader in English, the first track its name is: (never) (in Arabic: Balmarra) and the second its name: (Mattoot) (it means:happy, coming from the Arabic word: Mabsoot).

Click links to listen:

Mattoot Track7 by Hazem Alhamwi
Mattoot Track8 by Hazem Alhamwi

Dear Issam, I have the desire to write to you, but yesterday, I was at the dentist and I pick up my tooth (tooth of mind), so I am little sick, so I am unable to write, but I upload something.

Here are 3 video parts of Stone Bird

[flickr video=4187267724]

[flickr video=4187272642]

[flickr video=4187277192]

When i was under cover, i was looking strangely to the (stupid) happy faces around me and ask…why they are so happy??

After 2002, it was the turn 2 in -2004- and the matter went stranger later…

Morning Hazem

Here are more of my recent images.

It is foggy outside this morning, and there is something magical about cycling in the fog; you see as you go! and the landscape unfold itself in front of your eyes. This boundary between seeing and not seeing seems very moving, disorientating experience.

Since my last night post on the Bab Al Salam Mill, I remembered another experience there:

When I was painting on the top of its roof, a camera crew were filming at the bridge, and they waved there hands at me, gesturing a question about the way to climb to my place at the top of the Mill. So they managed to find they up to the roof , they were a camera crew for a Kuwaiti TV and were delighted with the views of Damascus Fabric, so they filmed the scene and asked me my permission to film me in action of painting my (to be lost)  painting.

I can’t help my grief of my whitened painting, on a roll of film, gathering dust in Kuwait!

Issam

Hazem,

The Mill looks derelict, voiceless and livless, I wonder if Barada is still, with his shallow water, flow under the mill’s mud walls? Here is the view I once painted from the Mill

Thank you for the moving stills.

Yes, Moudarres was one of many teachers, here what I wrote about him in my Eye and other magic moments:

“Diary of my studio was the title of my final project at the Institute. I did get a First in my year. I had many teachers, some plain, some vivid, but Fateh Moudarres (Moudarres means teacher in Arabic) was the silent one. I hardly heard him, until one day when I had to exhibit my “Diary of my studio” I knocked at the door of his basement studio to ask if he could write the introduction to my first exhibition. He opened the door (putting his index finger on his mouth) and ushered me inside, I followed him into his very long dark studio. The walls were covered with his paintings, writings, drawings, pictures, quotes and newspapers cuttings. He poured me a coffee with honey and asked me to sit on the chair next to the cassette recorder, and he asked me to press the RECORD button. He sat, giving me his back, behind his piano and started to play. I was in ecstasy; the place was filled with the unfamiliar sound of his piano keys and the smell of paint, dust, honey and coffee. He finished, took the tape out, and signed it “composition 27, F. Moudarres 1984”. It all made great sense; I didn’t know that my silent teacher was a composer, a poet and a great painter. I went out to the street closing my eyes, breathing slowly, trying to capture the remains of the after image inside my eyes.

The months,after I graduated, were a great insight to the inside world of a great teacher. Many years later I had an exhibition with him in Cambridge called Sketch, when Moudarres gave me his short stories, “The sprig of mint”, and asked me to translate it into English, but insisted that this should be translated by me only; to keep the spirit of his visual thoughts. I attempted this, sadly my teacher died and I never managed to untangle his complex simplicities.”

Did you film your self being buried? (This reminded me of this series by an artist I forgot his name)

Equally, do you know of a british Artist called Anthony Gormley; many of his works are based on moulds taken from his own body, and he talks very deeply about his experience being inside the mould, his meditation, and fragility.

As for you caricature, I think you might like to use them in there own as moving images, or you might find a way to be part of you film-making! . The other artist who uses drawing, organically as part of his ceramic pieces and as a form of storeytelling with great personal reference, is Grayson Perry. Although his images are “stills” on vases, typically, but they force/invite you to move around to see them. Let me know how you are getting on your Turn 2; i know you are working hard hence “I am watching the dawn now”.

I had few days in my studio working, harvesting the sunshine I’ll send some samples tomorrow from the studio.

I am not  a photographer, but recently I was drawn to use photography literally as drawing (some times painting) with light, or the lack of it (On the front page of  my College,Christ’s, www.christs.cam.ac.uk there is an image of mine of the sundial on a misty day).

Talking about the sun, I am having a meeting tomorrow to discuss a commission/sculpture to deal with the apparent movement of the sun in the sky (that is from our earth), It is a sundial/annual calendar called Analemma.

I had many studios in Cambridge, starting with my bedroom, then to my Round church Studio,

Newnham College Old Labs,

Girton College,

and for the last 12 years at Christ’s College, It is an old image around Sep 2007, as the wall piece on your right is now in the British Museum,

and one day I’ll build my own studio at the end of my garden!

What being to be? I know that to be an artist, in many ways, is a privilege, though some times it feels like a curse!

Here is me 5 years old holding a plastic TV!

and now

I am going to bed, good night!

Issam

Dear Issam. It is raining strongly outside, and the sky is red –matter of light-

I liked your photos with the glass, that I like when the ideas go to be more abstract, and the first 2 photos look really enlighten with old light.

You asked me about Federico Fillini’s  Prova d’orchestra, yes I have seen it, it is great movie, also I cannot forget the end of the film when the very big rock breaks the wall.

Maybe Fillini had difficulties to make his films and to make production, but if he was in the Arabic countries he was going to open a small vegetable shop near his home…J

Today I was talking with my girl friend about the problem of satisfaction in making films –as a team work- and I told her about your suggestion to keep drawing caricature as a self fast line for emotions, really I am thinking about it, but I thought to make some animation with my special characters, when I began drawing them about 2004-2005 (I will send some of them soon, and I will call it the turn2 in 2004) and I think if tat succeed, I will be very happy (more than now) that now I feel myself full of power (full charged) but not always I succeed to change it to work outside of me so it turn back to me and makes me…tired

I think Issam, even the rivers have their struggle stories to have their characters and final shapes not only the people, that is the life struggle, to be or not to be, but I think the problem is which: (BE) do you want to be?

And which (BE) Cam river wants to be?

Back to caricature that I liked to send to you more from the work of 1998. That I would like to tell you about the turn 1 of 2002, and after some days I will tell you about the turn 2 of 2004.

1998:

In 2002 I changed

I think I was changing deeply in my character because of many reasons…but this changes had a clear reflection on my way to draw, simply I broke all my laws, I became drawing without preparing, or even thinking, just feeling and feeling only, even the ideas was passing from my soul to my mind to my hand to the paper very softly, in that moments, I was free…

Even my subjects were talking about everything and anything run around in myself.

Turn 1 (2002)

I am watching the dawn now, and after this strong raining –it stopped now- both of the sky and the ground look tired as if they were making love during the night, and they are watching their sweaty bodies while the light appearing…

I remembered a story just now, it looks crazy…when I was 18 years old, I asked my friends to (bury) me underground, not too much, but all of mine, I wanted to test the feeling and the sand around you –even my head with a cover around it- my friends was making fun of my idea, but when I begin digging the ground they began helping me…and I tested it.

What I felt: nothing

But I mean not any feeling, but I felt the feeling of nothing, and in another words, I felt me and the ground the same thing.

Have a nice day (eye)

Hazem

I have desire to write to you but i have to go filming this morning…

but i will have more time at the evening…

when i saw your installation in the photos, i thought about your room or studio, did you build it in the space and details like your installation?

Here is a part of my studio -my editing room- Photographed by my friend Aouss Abduldaim

Also i liked to see a close image to your face…can you

another matter before leaving, i read through your web, that you studied under supervising of Fateh Almudarres, and he is one of my favorite artist, tell me about your experiment with him.

Hazem

Dear Issam, in this part of: The right side of that road

you can see the mill of  Bab Alsalam

Damascus miss you

[flickr video=4174942767]

Hazem,

Thank you for your thought of the day, Abu Hajar is an inspiration and is a “stone bird”! His images are powerful and his loneliness is poetic. I like what you said about you using him to tell a story of society and the way it acts to “mutilate” - some times under a the “love” cover. This reminded me of Federico Fillini’s  Prova d’orchestra and the way he uses the orchestra as a mirror of the Italian Society in the 70s (have you seen it?).

I spent the whole evening yesterday to try to send you some moving images to do with “Light as a canvas” but never managed to upload it ( it is too big!) so I was very disapointed and went to sleep thinking of ways to explore this. I think the best is to look at my site www.issamkourbaj.co.uk and look for Last light first light under projects.

While I was in my studio this morning, I received your posts, and thinking about your questions “what difference between Cam and Barada in your eyes?” and “how can Barada still alive?” I decided to go to the river with my Camera to take some images so to introduce you to Cam, but the minute I stepped out of my studio, I noticed a glass left on the steps of my studio filled with last night rain and alone. So I decided to spend sometime with it; here is the way I spend the day conversing with it,  and  thinking about the light, as an “old” light; it was travelling -from the sun- for 8 minutes or so before it reaches us.

Any way I had great time this morning and had a meeting with my geologist friend , who said something about Cambridge I felt that very much connected to my morning thought: ” today’s hill are valleys of the Past” and he told me an impressive story about the way the river Cam was changing it’s course (in geological terms -from about 400 000 years ago to the present time). So again the today’s river has travelled, as today’s light, for long time to find its shape! hope you find some answers, in my images,  for the way I deal with light.

I have so much in my plans for tomorrow, but if I have sometime I’ll take some images of the Cam, and I would very much like to see the Bab Al Salam Mill, if you could.

Your ” Here and there” reminded me of a piece I’ve done in 2000 called Farewell as part of my Juxtaposition project with aerial photography (see the following image), Farewell is a box and inside it the white piano keys, and when you open the black keys are separated from the white ones! and the river images (infrared) were exhibited on the floor.

I am not sure  about the diference beween Barada and Cam, but I like the meaphore of the river, and it is never twice the same!

Issam

What are your problems there?

What are my problems here?

Big questions…

What’s different between here and there?

What did you discovered?

What did you lost? And what did you win?

Happiness is there or near us here?

Can I make my big dreams about arts and films (more alive) if I traveled?

And what shall I lose?

The happiness is money? And we have to follow it whenever it was?

Happiness is one kind or a lot of kinds?

Where is the real meaning of our lives in doing what we like or in the social image?

I felt myself Faisal Kasem in (Aletijah Almuakes- on Aljazeera) during typing those questions.

Hazem

Between them there are you Issam

Actually I do not know a lot about Cam River, but what difference between Cam and Barada in your eyes? Also I have another question, how can Barada still alive? It is a small river and weak –I mean in its water- so I always admire how it is so alive in emotions of its friends, poems, memories…for me it is the most interesting point about Barada.

Yesterday I was thinking about your painting which was taken in the river, and I liked to ask about it, I think I will do that when I will pass there, also the mill of Bab Alsalam, it is a lovely building, I will try to send to you another part of: the right side of that road, that it appear…

Hazem

 Issam

Here is 2 parts of Mattoot (Audio)

Between the (nothing) and the (nothing) there is (nothing)

Maybe it is the last sentence you get it before –being mad- but this nothing has everything.

For me -madness- is a lovely world.

It is rich. It has all the elements of our life, But without –our- system.

 Are we happy with our system? Maybe yes, maybe not, but they have their own system but not ours, and after Mattoot, I made: Stone bird, a 30 minutes documentary, and in this film a was back to ask about madness and by this questions I can tell what, I want to tell, this world for me is a –way- to tell what I want. Maybe that is good, or bad, but that is it. It is world has a special kind of laws and a special kind of freedom.

In Stone bird, I was going to tell the story of Abu Hajar, and through his story I was telling why he became in this shape –mad- but in the film you can see that, he is not mad, and it one game of the games of the society, even his story was for me just –way- to talk about society and how it can kill a soul of human…I will prepare parts of it very soon.

And in the future I think I will go deeper in this world, it still charming for me.

i will upload the audio tracks later, that i could not do that now.

Here is Abu Hajar

Hazem

Maybe not by both of them, maybe both of them are (tools), maybe your camera will be very professional or it will be very simple, maybe you have a  medical problem in your eyes like the ears of Beethoven…I do not want to say that technical matters are not important, it is really important, also your background about beauty and how you see and feel it is also very important, but I do not think that is the most important thing, it is the power…your soul…for me it is not just (romantic words) that I believe in this power which can change the normal objects to objects full of art and meanings. And the background of any artist will express itself through his work, and that what I believe in, I believe that my background, childhood, character…all of that will express itself in all my work, so I do not think about it, and that what I do in my films, I just think about my subject and focus on it, but when I finish it and analyze it. I simply can notice that my character was there…so not the eye and not the camera, it is the soul, and that is so clear in my mind now, you need the power of your soul to make art…but this power has many sources to be (recharged) sometime by love another time if you were poor, or feel angry with your around, also the beauty through your eyes, and your good camera… 

Hazem

Dear Issam…you know, i miss you.

you said…Light as a canvas… Would you please tell me more about this.

Also you asked me. do you film by your camera or by your eye? i am still thinking about this matter…and i think i want to answer it but really i need to be more calm…that i am still editing my -hard- new film, and i feel my soul tired from it.

Hazem

Hazem,

The sun WAS smiling her in Cambridge,  and I am having very good morning in my studio.

I managed to attach some images for you to look at (not in order of there original !), including a very short moving image from this morning in my studio wall.

talk later

Issam

Here I am! I tried few times to write but the link to the IAA post didn’t work, and most importantly, I was not functioning! I had few days feeling the Post natal depression after the birth of  ”Light Matter” at the Cambridge University Senate House - I ‘ll include some images later.

Last weekend I was feeling like a pigeon with a nail drilled in its head! With so many hands at work, last minutes compromises prevent seeing one’s own vision. Any way, The evening went well, and I had some feed back “The whole show, in fact, does what all the best art does: renews the way its spectators see the world”

Talking about the world, I liked your experimental piece Damascus , and the way you are playing with monochromic colours, sound, water   light and movement (part 1) then with contrast  colours (worm and cold) and deeper sound and textures (part 2)- Is there more to come about Damascus? Hope so.

As for The right side of the road .. to Mazen, I was delighted to see it too; very good composition, the wall taking most of the screen and the road is in its right.

I know it very well; I used to take this rout to/from my half-room every now and again, particularly in the spring when you are able to be enveloped by the sound of Barada. And by the way this is too the rout my “Perfect painting” was taken by the wind, and whitened by Barada -from Bab Al Salam Mill all the way to Bab Toma’s Bridge - and I was running, shoeless,  beside the river, trying to catch glipmses of my lost painting untill I was brethless and with one painting-less! I remember asking someone standing by the river selling vegetables,  if he saw my painting IN THE RIVER ( I am sure, you can imagine how silly my question was for him, so he cut it short, he  gustured with his thump that it went that way, meaning eastward, to one of Barada’s Seven Branches.

Now about my latest work; I am working (for the last few years) with light and playing with its transformations/offerings (archaeological, spiritual  and sculptural ), Light Matter , as before it Let Newton be! were attempts to work with light as a canvas, too and media. The images attached are from the first-half  opening piece, on Discovery and Experiment, called ” Composition of whiteness”, which deals with layers hidden under the white light, and peeling it to its core, like an onion, white again is reborn but this time as duet performance.

The second-half opening piece on Eternal Quest, was called Mirror in the Mirror and the closing piece called Analemma, I don’t have pictures for them yet, but will have the whole performance on-line soonish.

Today, I was given big collection of  old (and expired) Polaroid films, and I went around the city asking for an old Polaroid Camera (I feel nostalgic to its sound, and the waiting action in order for the image to revail itself! Alas, the digital era is her to stay.

This brought another thought that I wanted to share with you and might be something that we could think about somehow; It might sound rather childish (or maybe playful), it is about communication in general and the way how our ancestors used  messengers, pigeons and even bottles filled with massages and I wondered if  I am to write (by hand ) a letter on paper and make a paper boat out of it, take it to to the river Cam,  and address it to - To Hazem Al Hamwi, Barada, Damascus- I was wondering if it will make it to you oneday?!

Now I am serious, what about thinking  the two Rivers, Barada and Cam?

How it is going with your (frame by frame) new Experimental  about woman? I look forward to see you thought on this.

Now I am ready to be horizontal! I can’t attach the images, I’ll do tomorrow from my studio.

Good night

Issam

It is an experimental film-14 minutes- was filmed in a small street of ancient Damascus and just from the right side of it. This lovely small street which connect between Bab Tooma and Bab Alsalam with a small river through it, I like the street and I felt that the people who lived there liked it a lot, so that was the line, all of us felled in love of that road

.I wrote in the end of the film: to Mazen

He was Mazen Abulkher my friend who liked this street so much, and we used to walk through it and talk and laugh, but when I was editing this film, he immigrated to USA, I knew that he will miss this small street, so I liked to keep some this emotions by the film

      I still feel this charming relation between human and the place, it is very original and very (clean) that The place around you not like the people around you, I do not want to say it is positive or negative, but with people almost you are with fast relations and it is coming from what you and they need, but with the place, it is more calm and deep and can live through all your life.

We will talk about this when we talk about my documentary: Childhood of the place

I will tell you about this project, and prepare part(s) from it.

[flickr video=4162928861]

 Dear Issam

I am writing to you from my editing room, i am still building the new film and not finished yet, tell me Issam About your performance on Friday, how it was

The main sequence in my new Experimental is about woman, and I was thinking about what I am going to say and from which side I will look to the woman, during this last days I felt the direction and it was difficult to find the visual face of what I want to say, and the results was so strange and (hard), it was a mixture between fashion show-in details- and cow and sheep killing, and I needed to work frame by frame to give the soul of the idea.

I prepared 2 video parts of Damascus, and as I said to you I was going to think about the born of the place, but the life of the places is longer than the human life, but also it has a creation  period like this moments when the child get out of the body of his or her mother, this moments are full of emotions and power, sadness and happiness. Brevity and fear…so I liked to imagine this moments but when the place is the baby

And when thought about this, I felt that I need all the sounds of the nature around me, and all the colors, because this moments have a plenty of (everything). And I decided to be honest to my feelings and brave enough to do it

[flickr video=4163651608]

[flickr video=4162916037] 

Yes Issam (o)_|.  Mattoot and …With Abu Issam are from my works, and i would like to edit some parts of them.

simply i want to tell you about my projects i have made and going to do…also i want to know-more deeply- about yours, that will need time but it will good to begin.

My mood today

i feel my head like a  big tree a lot of breaches are coming from it. one breache appear from my nose and another from my eye ع so i am near to be tired. i am editing my new experimental (self-woman-life) and its mood making me…i really do not know

i will write to you later. and hard luck on Friday…

if you like tell me about your emotion about the first presentation on Friday…the funny matter that i have to finish my film on Friday also as a result of the workshop…

i was thinking to call the movie: Happy dreams…i am just thinking about it.

Hazem,

It looks we need traffic lights!

I can’t hear the audio of Mattout or Mattoot , nor I can see  ”31 minutes and 52 seconds with Abu Issam”.  Are they both by you? Can you upload them?

i

For me it is an experimental film with a shape of documentary

This film describe a session with a poet –Monther Alshihawi- (Abou Issam) whereas variety  and affluence attract the viewer without any devices

Hazem

Hazem,

I am going to use not only some of your words in this post, but your thought too, as I think you expressed yourself very well when you talked about “self  balance and team work” and linked  ”making art to happiness, and happiness to the other”.

I gather that you are speaking “Arabic” to your team, and still, you might struggle to deliver a thought! It is worst when you see it, “the idea” is not sinking! So one feels like “singing at a noisy mill !”. Drawing caricature ! It is great dose of satisfaction and now you know what to take to your Desert Island; so carry on drawing caricatures regardless of the others (they get it or not, you can’t do much), maybe with your caricatures, you end up making your stills for your future autobiography!

I must say that I have been always “one man band”, so I didn’t need to speak  words to my paintings, but for the last few years I started collaborating, depending on the project in hand, with different group of: scientists, architects, engineers, astronomers, composers, archeologists, dancers, poets, actors, writers, theatre directors, choreographers, therapists , paleontologists and so on. So words became an essential tool of miss/communication; I know how frustrating when there is no chemistry, imagination, and risk within the team. and how enlightening when things work!

Yesterday, it was good to see the first dry run of dance pieces, coming together with some of my visual ideas - this Friday is the first of the two performances and I am realy looking forward to seeing it performed in the space of the Senate House.

As a treat to myself, after working very hard  with Newton’s piece  and this Contemporary Dance pieces, I had great day in my studio today working for the first time for months in my own,  the sun was shining and the work went from joy to more joy. I’ll post some images of today’s work when I have more time.

This week is congested with many things, teaching, and writing reports for my students, repairing the car and many small things that will take “big” energy .  I am looking forward to other things too, ” a workshop on Mapping Hisorty, People and Ideas”, a Private view for Postcard competition I co-judged with the poet Ruth Padel (Charles Darwin’s great-great-granddaughter) and the Dance pieces on Friday and Saturday. and the weekend, although it is only Monday, to spend at home, near the fire!

To answer your question briefly,  I left Syria in 1985. Why? Shall we say (without sounding pretentious) for curiosity of knowing myself and the other (I am not sure which comes first). I Left Damascus for Baku, Azerbaijan, then to St Petersburg, then to Cambridge UK, and many stations between. Though it is a long and hard journey, I think the “other life” as you called it, is an opportunity to see/glimpse from distance the map of the self. It is a turning point when you realise that for your river/spring to flow, you need to scratch the land, to make your own mark/map.

This brings me to your response on the new maps; my interest is not only visual, but psychological and archaeological too. Interesting that you mentioned religion and class, you might need to add race, sex, sexual orientation, and intelligence  to your list.

Seeing the cover for you Damascus Video reminded me the first letter of my name “I” (the sound of the initial of my first name, both in Arabic and in English, has mystical echoes; I is pronounced /aI/ and it means “eye” in English. In Arabic, ع is pronounced /aIn/ and that means an eye too!). But we have two eyes! Maybe one to look outward and the other inward.

You use the camera and I wonder how much of your work is coming from your eye, or the your camera’s? I look forward to seeing what is in the back of your/Damascus’ eye!

If I don’t write to you in the next few days, don’t think I am neglecting our dialogue. Have an inspiring time in/with Damascus.

Eye!

Mattout or Mattoot

It is An Audio work in 10 tracks, it was made between 2002 and 2004, and Mattoout is coming from the Arabic word -Mabsoot-

Mattout is a distorting for a word means HAPPY

Mattout is a vocal stuff that was recorded in mental sanatoriums in many Syrian cities which observe the world of retarded persons who are suffering from the social adaptation 

This work depends on the social and political topples, to reflect with an indirect way the shape of society

Here is the cover, the original photograph is by Arfan Khalifeh

Hazem

We talked about my experimental film Damascus, here is the covers and the videos will be soon.

Also i would like to tell you more projects and the films i have made, also i would like to tell me about yours.

Hazem

Dear Issam

 I always felt that maps has a special kind of painting, the surface, details, and information, I really do not know what we can talk about maps? Maybe I prefer the philosophical meaning that if we talked about this meaning in global vision –I mean not visual- will recognize that the human being was going to break the maps by communications tools and for economical reasons but very soon he begin to build it again by creating new shape of it. And I think the meaning of maps nowadays is going to be more complicated, that it was more clear before, the enemies and friends were more clear. now I think matters are going to be more upside down, and at the same time the more dangerous is that the maps -and here I mean limits- are going to be changed from the outer shape to the insider shape, that it is important to know if you are Syrian or American or French but I think now –the new maps- the more important is to know if you are Christian or Muslim has money or not, and the matter not only here you  will be put with a lot ready ideas in the same package and you will need a lot of work and efforts to get yourself out of this package. I think it is the new struggle in this age. Just to win your real personality and I think Issam we will talk about the different between personalities and individuality as much as I can to discuss with my English.

So we can talk about maps and the new –insider- maps

Hazem   

Dear Issam

Yesterday I wrote to you about caricature, actually I was drawing caricature from I was 7 years old, but I do not know way I stopped in about 2005, maybe because I went to film making with all my emotions and mind, but caricature was always the great way to keep myself balanced, maybe it is my nature or the nature of the edge or both, I cannot fix the truth but I always felt this real feeling that I have a lot of –crazy or madness- in my soul, also it is difficult to know or to tell where it is coming from, but the only thing you can learn it is how to deal with this –madness- how to make the safe road to make it express itself…and for that I used to look to –ALL- my art work as a way to keep myself balanced, that in some time they talk about art as a way for building society or building the soul of the human being, maybe that is right, but not in my case, and I knew this fact very early.

But when I begin making films, a new problem appeared…and this problem was a real danger to myself balance…it was the team work.

That for more than 15 years I used to run away to my drawing papers to draw and draw when I fell not good, and it was a great way to be good again, just some papers and ink and to be with yourself in a room and that is it. But has what changed in film making??

You are not alone now. And this way to (rest) is more complicated now. Especially when you do not have tools for film making, so your way to happiness now will pass though the other, so you need him (her) to get it.

I know that every human want and need happiness, but the shape of this happiness will come from your nature, backgrounds, childhood…etc, so it is different from one to another, I used to like this fate, my fate that I need to make art to feel happy, but the matter now is the way to happiness pass through the other, I feel less satisfied than before…

And my new (sick) is to imagine films and write them. And then try to sleep well that you have to forget it, that there is no way make it, to change the imagination in your mind to a real. I miss the time of caricature…that the dose of satisfaction by art cinematographic is more that drawing caricature but it is too much hard to get.

You asked me about maps. It is a big word Issam, I will think about it.

Tell me Issam, when you leaved Syria and why and tell me about this –other life-
Hazem

Dear Issam i am in the editing room-my work room-now i am so busy today that i have to finish my new experimental film in 5 day, also i have to continue working in Alshaarani documentary that i have to finish it in 20 next month.

i would like to send to you some of my caricature, and we will talk about that a lot later.

i will send to you 2 images from the work of the year 1998…in that year i was drawing day and night…(maybe hunderds of drawings) that it was my best way to keep my own balance…i will write to you about that, maybe today during the break with my editor.

if the photos were not uploaded. they will be added very soon, just for next massage
Hazem

Hazem,

I remember seeing Mouneer Alshaarani’s work here in London  at the British Museum “By their fruits shall you know them” and look forward to seeing your fruits on him, and the experimental film on the 3 issues: self, women and life. Hope you will manage to upload them , I know it is not easy, so take your time!)

Arabic calligraphy and script was my means of survival and the beginning of my journey with making marks; it all started because of my older brother, Shaher, who is a calligrapher and we, together, used to write signs on buses, cars, shop-fronts.

In March 2003, I started a project called Palimpsest. where I used Arabic script on/with hospital and veterinary X-ray plates (see Book of the dead dismembered)

In 2007, The British Museum acquired a piece from that project called Sound Palimpsest deals, in a subtle archaeological ‘prose’ using Arabic script, with layers of fragments: aural fragments of ordnance-sounds, visual fragments of  walls with children’s graffiti, technical fragments of hospital and veterinary X-ray plates, fragments of books, fragments of Arabic songs. (see one fragment!)

Now, It is taking me a long time  to figure out how to attach images (still not sure about links though!).

I had a very good day yesterday in London, visiting an exhibition called (The Map Is Not the Territory Revisited) . Today I met with a geologist and we were talking about the geological map of Cambridge; he said something interesting about his relation to Cambridge “when I walk through the city I think of the unseen beneath my feet !” It reminded me of you and Damascus, and on this note, I wonder about your interest in maps?

Issam

Dear Issam as I said to you I will –wire to you- about my projects.

Now days I am working in tow projects, the first one is a documentary film talking about Syrian calligrapher his name is Mouneer Alshaarani, I liked the work of this artist also I liked his dramatic life…and maybe I can say his dramatic lives. Actually it is a difficult documentary and I think it will be about 45 minutes, and after about 2 weeks I will show you a part of it. Alshaarani became for me not only a way to talk about art but also to talk about the relation with roots, that he lived outside of Syria    -and he is Syrian-for more than 25 years –for political reasons- and now he is back to his country, we can talk about this documentary later…

The other project is a result of a workshop was made by an artistic team in Damascus their name: All Art Now. The workshop was about Experimental films and I am going to finish a short experimental film –about 4 minutes up to 7-and the subject is very philosophical that I will let the image talk about 3 levels, the first is: To know yourself, from knowledge to lost…

Second is: Woman, from Symbol to thing…

And the third: life, from death to death…

Also Issam I will send part of it just I need some more time to learn how to upload photos and videos, any way I am working on it this days and as the plan of the workshop I have to finish it in one week.

I read what you wrote about your painting in Bab Touma near Barada. This story look like life, we want things and life needs things, maybe another things, and this desires are blind- unfortunately- life do what it wants and it is blind of what we want, so this –blind- desires of life we call it fate, so maybe Barada liked your painting,-He- wanted it hardly like a child, and the wind as a father did not want to refuse the wish of his lovely son. So the wind decided to send it to his son, and the wind was blind of all what this painting meant to you. And the worse thing dear Issam is that maybe this river-like a child- when he got what he wanted, he got bored of it and in few minutes it was broken…

I wrote these words yesterday and the funny matter that I do not have 3G internet in my home but just in the home garden but it was raining during the night so I waited till the morning.

Good morning

Hazem

Dear Issam that will look funny. but i am making -a trip- in the web of Imagine Art After.

it is very big! i am lost. and need help…and at the same time i am making my first upload by myself -without our friend Eline- and if we saw this words in our dialgue that will mean, i made it, and if not, only me will know about this try.

Hazem

Hazem, I would like to see your experimental piece on Damascus, could you post it?

Bab Tuma was the centre of my universe; in the morning I had to drop by to eat my daily student portion of  FOOL, Fava-beans from (From Al Sous), followed by a glass of Tea from world  smallest Teashop nearby, and then walk to the 7 Fountains. Late evening,  in my way  to my half-room, (I try to avoid, Al Sous, and of course, he never liked that) I stop to buy a bottle of red wine and walk to my street (Al Qimariyah). The night magnifies its sound, so I hear my steps on the cobbled narrow streets.

In the early 80s, Damascus was the City of my whitened painting:

“I enjoyed our projects at the Institute of Fine Art, and one day we had to paint a scene from the Old City. I chose to paint, from the mill over the river Barada, one of the seven gates of Old Damascus. My presence outdoors was celebrated, and many people offered me tea and cold water. Two weeks later I was putting the last touches on my perfect painting, when a gust of wind picked my painting up and flung it over, and Barada carried it away on its waters. I never saw my painting again, but always wondered if anyone found it — wet, weathered and whitened — and hung it on their walls. “

Recently I wrote the following for my College (Christ’s) Pieces magazine:

Cambridge Palimpsest and my artaeology map

“When I was learning to read, I remember the postman used to deliver letters to our house which were addressed in a way that is now lost:

To Mr Jamil Kourbaj (my father’s name): South of the Market Square, East of Hamad Al Hakim shop,

or

West of the Mill, near the Coffee Baker, or North of the Ashoush Dentist Surgery…

or

East of the Baker, North of the water tanks…

My people use the sun for light, time and directions. I was under the illusion that this system of navigation was only used only in my city, ‘the Syrian Philipopolis’. I was delighted, when, much later, I moved to study art in Damascus, and realised that the Damascenes used it too. In order to find the way back to my half-room inside the walled Old City, I had to use graffiti as a guide for walking through the cobbled narrow streets. Old Damascus has seven gates, and Qasion Mountain was the last landmark I saw from the plane, flying away for the first time.”

On 30th August 1985, I made to Damascus airport, but for the first time not to the Arrivals Area! I left, and each time I return, it takes me awhile to see, under the dust, Damascus the beautiful female.

Hazem, send me images of your Damscus, fill me with its (her) soul. and “wire me with about your new projects.”

Issam

Dear Issam, it was touching what I read from you about Damascus, and maybe I was able to imagine this half room, also I felt it a nice location to film a scene about a life of a student has a rich life or double life in a half room.

It is always the great relation between the human and the place, the place will be dead without human and the life of the human will be poor without the effect of the place, and I can understand this kind of lives you have inside you with details and memories.

I made in 2006 an experimental film its name was: Damascus. And in this film I wanted to say that the place born like the human, it is something similar to be a birth of a place. I will try to show you a part of it later.

And when I read your massage and you talked about Bab Touma I was in it, and now I am writing to you from it…

For me when I talk about Damascus I really mean ancient Damascus. That new Damascus –as I feel- doesn’t have the same soul. I will wire to you about my new projects as you asked me.
Good night Issam
From Bab Touma
Hazem

City of thousand questions! Is it the title of your next film?

Hazem, you reminded me of my half-room in Old Damascus, where I used to live as a student of the Fine Art Institute (at the 7 Fountains). The postman never made it to my half-room; far too complicated to find. Nor to the institute for that matter!

The following passages are part of a collection of short stories called - Eye and other magic moments - I was asked to write about landmarks in my life as an artist:

“In Damascus I lived in the Old City, in what was called a half-room; It used to be a rather tall room, and necessity forced it to be halved, it had rather low ceiling, four windows and hardly any walls. A small lock, used usually for small bags, secured the door of my magic box. My half-room was almost a light box, but a rather cold one. The neighbours were strict about using electricity for heating. For warmth, I had to rely on cheap wine and many generous girlfriends.”

Half of me was left in my half-room, and each time I go to Syria I feel the need to revisit it!

Damascus, meant different things to me at different stages:

As a boy, it meant the City of Planes (as many times I came to the airport to welcome relatives from abroad),

In the mid 70s it became the City of Joy (I used to visit the fun fair in Bab Tuma),

As a student it was the City of Thousand doors (I am sure you know of the 7 gates of the old city, and of the many stories behind each of its door)

I miss her too, say good night to her, and probably it is morning when you are reading this. Now, tell me more of your take on Her! Issam

Dear Issam, it will good to talk about this (small-big) word: Syria
For me I like to talk about it, but I like more to talk about Damascus. I feel Damascus can explain all Syria. Maybe because in this city there is people from everywhere in Syria –like all capitals- but I am sure that something special in this city…for somehow Issam I am leading to begin our dialogue about Damascus. Maybe you like it, hate it, know it or not, I do not know, but I know that this city full of questions –city of questions- and I am sure of another thing: this city is female not male, female in forty or fifty years old. So –she- is a mother and she has the ability to receive and to accept and to feed all who live in her home. And I saw that when immigrates came -in millions- to –her- she looked tired and need calm but also –she- looked happy.
I do not know Issam what Damascus mean to you. And which kind of memories do you have it. But in this moment and I am just a post man between you and her, Damascus said to you: I miss you my son.
Good night
Hazem

Hazem, You are right, it is difficult to be a film director, artist, poet, in Syria or, as a matter-of-fact, anywhere in the world! As I see it, the idea of IAA is to explore un/common grounds, what is lost/gained in staying or leaving the land.

agree too that there are lots of subjects in Syria to play with, so tell me what “interesting matter” you are working with/thinking about currently?

I am working with “Light Matter” as a visual artist collaborating with contemporary dancers/composers to create an (2) evenings of sound, movement, and light as part of the Cambridge University 800 Birthday Celebration. In challenging, but fascinating/provocative space; The university’s Senate House! The Performances are in early December, so from Saturday 28th (the first Dry run of the Performance), till the 6th Dec I’ll be “absorbed” by Light! Please see this site.
Issam

Dear Issam it will be great to be together in the group of Imagine Art After, actually I feel the idea little strange but at the same time I feel power and desire to discover each other especially that -as an artist- we have a lot say…and in life we have a lot to do…
I am Hazem Alhamwi a film director from Syria, and to be a film director in Syria is difficult matter but at the same time is an interesting matter that there are a lot of subjects here.
Dear Issam I wish to be a good period between us.
It will be good also to thank the team of Imagine Art After for all their efforts. Hazem.

Good Afternoon,
And Many thanks to the IAA Team for your work.

Very much looking forward to start our conversation, communication or dialogue! Not sure what to call it, what ever it is, I hope its a journey/ a place for inspiration.

Just back with our newly extended family (our new dog, Kindah), from a drive to a village outside Cambridge to visit a friend sculptress, who is giving us an antique organ- not that I know how to play it, but I am always interested in objects with personality, and the new organ will need new place in our landscape, so I might manage to find a place, for this new extended family member, this afternoon! But it has to be after I take my children to play their football match.

Waiting to start this project reminded me of a childhood memory of waiting for my relatives (the ones emigrated to Venezuela) to call from there, at a time when the whole city had a handful of telephones, each of their spoken word/sound carried enormous weight of excitements among us (at the Syrian end).

Here I am in front of a screen, and very much look forward to hear from Syria, from you Hazem.

Issam

Welcome to imagine art after! Hazem, Issam, where are you now? What are you up to?