6/30

Fatma

Meeting Mohammad Harib

It’s always good to see a local talent shining and soaring in the sky of success. Hearing about his life and story success wasn’t new to me. He’s already almost a celebrity in the UAE and almost everyone knows his story. It was still inspiring to hear it all again and to see his work again. It reinforces the fact that he’s good and he’s making it in the professional life successfully.


Freej's official website:
http://www.freej.ae/
Lammtara "Mohammad's Identity brand ":
http://www.lammtarapictures.com/index.html


In terms of the project, we finalized the idea and worked on mock up pieces to demonstrate how the actual pieces would look like and function. The project will still take an interactive approach. It will have two pieces, one with the flip-able tiles with figures from different culture represented by the figures of the group’s own members. The media we though we should use is Transfers and have the background done with screen-printing and hand drawing and painting. The piece second will be the puzzle on the cubes, which will have 6 different sides. 3 sides representing one culture of our three different cultures on each sides. The Emirate, The American and the Korean. The other 3 sides would have a fusion of illustrations and images of our 3 different cultures creating some sort of surreally interesting images. After presenting out finalized idea. We started to take pictures for the flip rotating piece and some girls started doing transfers. So far I think we are going in a good direction. Hopefully we’ll stay on the right track !

Ilene

"We finalised and shared our project concepts today. I am very pleased with how well our group works together and how agreeable everything is, especially after seeing the other groups. I suppose it might just be luck but we all seem to have similar visions, as well as similar work ethics(even though we are from different backgrounds..woo mission statement). Today we took pictures of each other in clothes that represent us and our culture. I was very excited to see Alia's outfit since I only see her in her abiya. It was very pretty, and so much more colorful than anything I had."

"Also today the creator of Freej came to talk to us. It was very inspirational. I also found it interesting that him, like the people from dxb left their homes to go to college in the states. I think the ability to take time to study with another culture is a good way to help yourself grow. I wanted to come to Dubai to help both myself and my art improve because in the states I grow used to certain things, but coming here has really opened my mind to new cultures, new techniques, and a new way of doing things. I feel like studying in another country gives you opportunities to learn more than if you just stay in the same place."

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/405590/freej_cartoon_trailer/

Bora

"Since our group proposed the idea for the project, we stepped further to create the work in the process. Throughout the presentation, we showed how we are going to create images on the block by making quick models of blocks and drawing images on the blocks. Also, we showed how the blocks are putting together in order to interact our images. We are going to making two different pieces, but they are related to each other. A life size scale blocks, we are going to have four parts and four sides of images of ourselves, representing different people from different cultures, Emirate, Korea, US. On the background, images of each culture will be a screen printing, image transferring, drawing, or painting. On a cube, created by 81 blocks, 6 images will be printed, and each side will be different images. Three of each culture and three of cultures merging together will be created. I found images of Korea for the background of myself. I will be screen printing the image. Also, I will use several images to transfer images on the blocks.

Mohammad Harib
His presentation was really inspiring. Hearing about his background, life and experience from the work he’s creating helped me understand the culture and art of UAE. Before I saw him, I saw his animation characters in several places like Dubai mall and thought that they were very interested to see because his animation is about Emirate’s culture, and it seemed so popular in UAE. Then I found out that is the first animation film in the Middle East throughout his presentation. I could hear his passion and dedication about his works and I really appreciated the fact that he came to the university to give us presentation."

6/29

Ilene

"Today we finally discussed what our final project would be. We had to think of something that would illustrate our vision of the statement "All humans are equal" and "People should all share their lives and gain experience through interacting with each other and learning more about each other while keeping an open mind" We all had similar ideas of how to illustrate this. Both Fatma and I envisioned a design that showed a merging of multiple cultures. When Alia got here she told us she had blocks we could work on, which when the project is finalized, the viewer can actually touch, showing the interactive nature of this program. We will each make our own designs illustrating our own culture, and then swap them and merge our cultures. In the end we will have a piece showing the unique qualities of one culture, and then what happens when they are mixed. On top of that the viewer can mix and make cultural designs for themselves and see what type of images they get.”

“We also went to dxb lab today to learn about some of the structures they had made and were working on. It was interesting because much of their work revolved around principles similar to that of our mission statement. The main idea of our statement is that people should embrace the unique qualities of their own culture, yet respect and learn from other people’s culture. The people who talked to us were not from Dubai. They had both studied in California, and they were both raised in Germany. If they did not have open minds to other cultures they would not have learned what they learned and they would not have been where they were. On top of that, a main theme of theirs was mixing building styles. In the examples they showed us they used a modern western style using old Arabic styles for inspiration and as building blocks.”

Fatma

on the way to the firm

combination of two images I took on the way back

Today we did more discussions on ideas and ways to approach the project. Within the group we thought of doing an interactive instillation. The viewer takes part of creating the artwork at that moment of time during the show by juxtaposing and putting together parts of images of our different cultures with their own way or perception of how it should be creating a new mixture of culture. Then we presented our idea and got some good feedback and other related ideas that were interesting like having a doll paper like instillation where the audience can play dress up with figures that look either western or eastern and have attire of different cultures on them to create a culturally mixed interactive piece. Another interesting idea that Bernard tossed at us is to have a flip animated thing like the opening of the series Ugly Betty

We though what if we had self portraits of each one of the group Emirate American and Korean on tiles or blocks and each part of the portrait is sectioned In a way when it gets flipped for example the Korean person’s eye is put together with the American nose put together with the Emirate lips.
Although they are all good ideas, I feel we’ve been doing a lot of talking and so little doing. We should find time to make the artwork instead of wasting time talking about how it should be and save the time while doing the process.

Later today we went to an architectural firm. It was really good and inspiring despite the fact that I’m not an interior or architecture student, I still found the collaborative spirit of the firm to be great and inspiring.

Bora

"Our group discussed for the project that we are going to create within a week and half. As our mission statement is “All humans are equal”, we want to create artworks by merging multiple cultures into one. Since our group is created with three different cultures, Emirate, US, and Korea, our works will show six different images, which three reflect each culture and other three images merge together. The six images will be on blocks of a cube that can be rotated around, and a viewer can play and rotate the blocks to create images that the viewer wants to see. It will be nice to interact between artists and viewers, which arts can be seen from different perspectives. We are going to work from scraps of images from each culture and discuss how we are going to create images coming together.

We visited an architecture firm, dxb, in Dubai today. We met two architects, who both are Germans and graduated from an architecture school in California. We could see how they are working in Dubai, where many different cultures are coming together so quickly, and from their different background cultures, they design buildings to be their own style with the respect of UAE culture and people and understanding of the environment. I really like their designs, which are very minimalist and stand out by their unique designs."

6/28

Ilene

"Money and fame define success in my culture. I think it is similar for the people in the UAE, however I also feel family is very important there, and having a good connection to your family defines success as well. To be successful I want to be a sought after designer, as well as generally happy. Money would be good but an appreciation of my work would be better. I also want to have a happy home life, and live happily with my family( my future family, as well as my present family like my parents and brother)"

http://hph.co.nz/guestlist.html

"I want to die not thinking about what I could have done or should have done, if I die content I will have lived a successful life. I want to have art that is sought after, I would also like to make art that could help people like working for a non profit."

Fatma

I think that success in the Emirate culture is divided into two. Success in the eye of the older generation is different than younger generations' perception of success. I believe that older generations' perception is very simple, to them being successful is to build a family and make a living to provide for the family. In contrast, I think the younger generation demands more to achieve success, its more complicated and harder.To them success is achieved by getting an education, having a social life, having a family, pursuing a career and being financially independent .

To me success is to find a balance between the chaos. Success is to find a balance between having a professional life, a personal life and a social life. To not give up to failure and to keep on trying to achieve success. Maintaining success is also important. I believe that could be achieved by developing new skills, improving old skills and putting them in good use. To me Success is also about taking chances and using given opportunities. That doesn't necessarily mean getting them all right and getting out of them with amazing result but to actually try out your best in making the best out of it and if it doesn't work out well moving on and not losing hope is success.

A for my life I think success is to help out others, be an active member in the society, to be a good family member, to produce work, to learn, spread the knowledge, to be a good Muslim. I think that would require a lot of time and hard work to be achieved fully. Again it’s about finding a balance and creating an order to the chaos of life.

As an artist I think I could achieve success by delivering my message what ever that might be to people; As well as touching people's feelings and to move something inside them. Being a successful artist to me also would mean to get recognitions in the local and hopefully regional art scene. I also think to be successful I would have to spread the knowledge I have and share it with others. I would also have to develop my skills keep up with things around. Always learn new methods and techniques. I’d also have to contribute to the society in some sort of social services or community work in order to be a successful artist.

For this class, I believe success could only be achieved by being communicative and by sharing ideas and thoughts and skills and to help out others and to finally create a final product that would be both aesthetically successful and conceptually meaningful.

To be successful is to GROW UP

here is a video I found that illustrates success in its simplest form. Growing up and moving on in life by it self is a sign of success!

Growing Up from Jr.canest on Vimeo.

Success does not happen by accident, it happens by design.

Bora

"These days most women want to be successful in their career. Women are receiving higher education and they expect high for themselves. They want to be independent. However, women are struggling when they meet the time of marriage because they want to be a good wife and mother and at the same time they want to do well in their career. I think that it is very difficult to maintain both roles well at the same time. Thus, when a woman does both roles successfully, we call her a successful woman. "

6/25

How is your culture portrayed? What sources do you look to, to determine culture? What aspects of culture do you want to explore? What cultural stereotypes do you want to dispel about your own culture?

Ilene

"In a positive sense Americans are portrayed as independent and free to speak their minds and do what they want. In a negative sense we are thought to be fat and rude. I look towards people who are either part of the culture or familiar to with the culture (before coming to Dubai I asked my Arab friend a lot of questions). I would like to explore socializing outside of school both with friends and family. I think Bush made us seem like a very violent country (and yes we did start a war and have a high crime rate)however many of us were very opposed to the war and still are, and many of us work towards and care about creating a less-violent, and safer society."

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

I feel like this video kinda sums up the American "Dream"..Kelly Clarkson(someone made from no one) singing our national anthem, at our nation's "favorite" pastime.

Bora

"Korea is only one divided country remained in the world now. The world concerns about the issues of nuclear from North Korea, which makes people fear about wars. Since we’ve been separated for a long time, South and North Korea seem to be having two distinguish cultures. North Korea is an isolated country and South Korea tries to open to the world and share cultures with others. Korean food is well known through the countries. Kimchi is one of the well known Korean foods. "

6/24

(Daily Reflection)

Ilene

"I learned a bit more about men and woman’s relationships, where they meet and how they interact. I also learned about “The Shelter” which was a neat place, and the artist “Ebon Heath”. I saw his art, and I also saw the inside of a spa in which woman took off their Sheila and some their Abaya. It is amazing how just being a woman in Dubai one can feel like, and one really is like a member to an exclusive club. As far as obstacles go, there were only two I can think of. The first was while broken into groups we had cover 11 pieces of wood. The obstacle was thinking of how to cover them. We all worked together and separately. We came up with our own ways of covering it, however helped each other in doing so, like Alia helping Bora glue down Boras’s cloth. The second obstacle was trying to get a van cab when coming home from the Macotta mall. We ended up just taking two cabs though."

Alia

“Today I enjoyed helping Ebon Heath with his instillation I loved the fact that he used 16 different languages to try and communicate with as much people as possible. I think it is really inspiring because art is universal. After leaving shelter, which was an interesting place to be in, we went back to our campus. We were handed 11 pieces of wood to cover with whatever we want, basically the sky was our limit. We thought it would be interesting to let each girl do her own but we would help each other through the process because then we would know each others styles and we would have 11 different styles rather than 11 that look almost the same. And I didn’t feel that we faced any difficulties today it was really smooth working with the girls in my group.”


Fatma

"Helping out Ebon and Mona in their instillation was a good experience. Although we only spent few hours doing that it was good to participate and help out. I liked Shelter as a place I found it to be a great place for networking and holding business meetings. The only bad thing about the trip for me was wasting time waiting for the artists. Overall I think the whole thing wasn’t planned well. I’ve seen pictures of the final show installed and to be frank I was disappointed. The instillation was set in a white room and the instillation parts were white visually I found that to be unattractive. Also the scale of it comparing to the works we’ve seen on Ebon’s website was also disappointing. My guess the reason for that is maybe it’s because they had limited time and didn’t get enough help from people around. Or maybe it was to ambitions to the resources they had.”

After our participation in assisting Ebon and Mona's installation we went back to the studio and started putting information on 11 woods of block as a starting point for the collaborative group project.

Process:

6/23 - Sharjah Trip

• Sharjah Archaeology Museum
• Sharjarh Art Museum

(Daily Reflection)

Ilene

"I saw Sharjah and an archeological, as well as an art museum in it. I saw a much less well-to-do place than Dubai. I learned about the history of Sharjah as well as today’s culture there. Other than talking over lunch there was not all too much communicating. The only obstacle I really faced was trying to get take out from our hotel. After much dealing with the hotel staff we were able to get a menu and eventually able to get food delivered. and it was good."

Alia
"In this trip I actually learned a lot. For have I never knew that we had an Archaeological Museum in the country. I found it astonishing to know how long ago people lived on this land and their way of living was amazing I still can't wrap my head around it. As well as that, it was really interesting for me to know how the people that lived before me on the same land I am living on lived so differently I can only relate to them by land. And as for the Art Museum, what really captured my attention was the British invasion on Ras Al-Khaimah were they burned the houses and killed the local people. And the fact that a British artist did the prints to show how the land was invaded and the people were ripped out of their own houses. As for the obstacles, I came to realize that I had minimal information about the land I live on and come from and that I take it for granted. As for the way to solve this problem, I decided to read and research more about it because every information I learn about it helps me appreciate it more and be thankful to see where we were and where we became."

Fatma
“For me, although I live in the UAE I have never been before to Sharjah’s archeological Museum and Sharjah’s Art Museum. I think going to the archaeological Museum would be a great experinece for school kids as a trip. Generally, it was interesting to see how living in this region has evolved and to see how it was affected by the environment and how simple was the living at early historical periods. I was particularly amazed by the coins collection and found it amazing how tiny yet detailed they were. I can’t help but wonder about how did they manage to do it in such an early primitive times. Another interesting fact about the coins was that I noticed some of them probably seemed to be roman or byzantine and from the other surrounding areas. I find that to be as an early sign of trade and movement of people around the region. On the other hand, I really liked the Art museum and see it as a good starting point for the academic art scene in the UAE. The collection is humble in size but I think with time and more support from the government it would flourish. I can already see competition between different art museums in the UAE in the near future as Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi are planning more museums with global supervision of international worldly renowned museums like the Guggenheim and the Louver. I can’t wait for all their planning and building to reach a finished outcome. It would make a great and exciting art scene. I loved Dr. Sultan bin Mohamed Al-Qasimi’s Orientalist collection and was super impressed by the lithography pieces we saw. Lastly, I was very glad to see a ZU graduate actively working and having a impact in making decisions in such place like an Art Musuem.”

Bora
"We visited the Sharjah Archaeology Museum and Sharjah Art Museum. In the archaeology museum, I could learn the history of Sharjah and also life and culture of people lived through the periods in Sharjah. In the art museum, I could see the Middle East artists’ works. It was surprised to see many abstract paintings and different artists’ paintings from different countries. On the second floor, the lithography works from 1800’s are exhibited and they are amazing that the artists worked to keep all the details of pictures in the periods. From the trip, I could have better understanding of the culture and art, and from them I could learn where people of the region lived thru the periods. "

6/22 Jumairah

Jumeirah Mosque

• Learn the religion, "Islam"
• Learn the culture of U.A.E

What did you learn? What did you see? What did you communicate? What obstacles did you face? And what were the solutions?
(Daily Reflection)

Alia

"I learned that even as a Muslim learning more about Islam and the wisdom behind it is still very interesting to me. Just the thought of how god put in all that wisdom behind every act he asks of us, wanting us to be better people, and wanting what is best for us on its own makes me more faithful and thankful. And learning more about Islam, I always find new information it is like water well that never ends the more you dig the more water will burst out. No matter how much you learn you never know everything about it, which actually amuses me and makes me more attached to it. (It makes my faith grow and it makes me even more proud to be a Muslim.) The only concern I had going to the Masjid was how the U.S. students would react to the things they’ll see and learn about Islam and the way they’d react to it. Later that day, I was really pleased to see that they were open minded and willing to learn more about it and even to have some interest in it by asking questions about Islam to correct any misconception they had about it."

Ilene

"I learned about Islamic culture and why they do what they do. I also learned a bit more about a woman's place, which while I still do not feel like I would be comfortable doing what they do, I have a much less negative view on how society treats them as females. In fact certain things I really like, there seems to be more chivalry in their culture, which our men could certainly learn from ; ) I saw some beautiful designs, and this was also the first time I saw Jumerah, which was nice since most of the Zayed girls are from there. One concern, being raised jewish and choosing that while I agree with the principles, the organized prayer is not for me, was that they may try to force their religion on us. I realize the girls did not pressure us but I have been to churches (especially mormon) where people try to get you to convert and that bothers me very much. However I was pleased when it was obvious they just wanted to share culture, not convert anyone. I was also impressed by how accepting they were of other culture because I feel like, especially in certain religions, people are not always accepting, even if their ideals are similar. "

DAY 1 Getting to Know Each Other

THE TEAM
From the US : EILEN
From KOREA: BORA
From the UAE: Alia & Fatma

Our First Day

What was your feeling before you met? How did you feel, did it change when you finally met?

Alia

“I don’t really know how I felt before meeting the MICA students to be honest. However, what I knew was that I wasn’t worried because just their act by coming here means that they are willing to listen to us and learn more about our culture, traditions, and religion. And experience the way we live and realize that we are not that different and that Arabs and Muslims are humans too. And that we are going day by day ultimately wanting the same thing as everybody else which in my opinion basically is living life and enjoying every moment with the ones we love and the people around us because life is short and we should make the most of it with the least amount of regret possible.”


Ilene

"I was a little nervous about offending the girls or doing something wrong. However after meeting them and talking to them they were very mellow and I felt like there was not too much I could not say to them, at least no different than I would say to anyone in the states."

Bora

"I did not really know about UAE before I came here. I heard many things about Dubai that made me really want to come here. I wanted to experience new things happening in Dubai. However, I realized the culture of UAE is different from my culture. I thought that I might have to have more understanding of people and culture of UAE since I rarely knew about them. I was being very careful to get to know Emirate at first because I didn’t want them to feel uncomfortable or disrespectful by misunderstanding each other. After I’ve spent time in Dubai, my perspective has been changed. Emirate people are very nice and kind. I learn that their culture and religion are different from ours but they are just same as us."