With its range of indigenous plants and trees, Abu Dhabi’s Mushrif Central Park was a fitting choice of venue for a public art workshop promoting sustainability using local materials.
Led by Emirati artist Azza Al Qubaisi, last week’s class, held on May 18 – International Museum Day – was the first in a series, organised by Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation, that will be held in the park’s climate-controlled exhibition hall.
Coming up this summer there will be creative two-hour classes for children between the ages of 5 and 10. They will learn silk painting and how to create their own notepad or backpack, among other practical craft activities.
For Abu Dhabi-based Qubaisi, 37, it is a chance to engage the community to share her passion for sustainable art.
“I’ve been doing interactive public engagements and workshops for more than four years. In the past it was mainly me talking about my experience, which I felt was boring. So to enable the public to actually work with the physical material that I enjoy working with was a very special feeling.”
At the workshop, participants learnt how to make ornaments from kurub – the lower branches of the date palm which, when sliced, resembles the human eye – and decorated them with different kinds of sand from various parts of the UAE.
“For several years now I’ve been creating sculptures and patterned creations out of what I call the ‘palm eye’,” says Qubaisi. “The palm branches are part of the fabric of our past way of life.”
The sand Qubaisi gathered comes in four distinct colours and textures, depending on where it was collected – Fujairah (brownish red), Dubai (cream), Liwa (red) and the fourth, a grainy deep red sand called hamrour. “This sand was hard for me to collect. It’s gathered from the edge of the red sands of Liwa, where you can see lines of really dark red, a totally different grain. I have to collect it by hand, literally – it’s difficult to pick up.”
Qubaisi is very familiar with the landscape of Liwa – her family owns a farm there, it is the source of her raw materials and it is also where many of the sustainable practices of her ancestors are still followed.
“The kurub is usually kept for the winter and burnt as a substitute for wood,” she says. “The longer part is thrown with the leaves to the sheep, who eat most of it. Then whatever is left is used to make edrowan, or wall hangings for the farms. These are made even today.”
Qubaisi, who held the workshop on the same day she handed in a dissertation titled “Cultural Identity Through Design in Abu Dhabi” as part of her master’s degree, started out as a jewellery designer. She began working with kurub seven years ago, initially making sculptures with the material, and noticed people developing a deeper appreciation for the material.
“Friends call me and say: ‘I have a full load of kurub, do you want me to bring it to your house?’” she says. “I think a lot of people want to find a way of using it. Some people tell me: ‘We’re going to do something similar to you.’ And I say that’s OK, as long as you tell people I inspired you. Because at the end of the day, we can all embrace sustainability by using local resources.
“More than ever, there is a desire now to have something locally made, locally designed. I felt I wanted to create pieces that can really reach everybody and that they can appreciate in their daily lives.”
artslife@thenational.ae
