ShareKUWAIT: Contemporary Art Platform (CAP) hosted three exhibitions on Tuesday, where two of them depicted a combination of photography and calligraphy as a visual form of solidarity with Palestine, and the third continued the legacy of Iranian artist Farideh Lashai. In his exhibition “Quill and verse: A calligraphic poetry”, Fareed Abdal, a Kuwaiti architect, artist and designer, showcased a distinctive collection of his previous calligraphic works that merged the reflection of the Palestinians’ forms of resistance and their struggle with the occupation. The choice of the displayed artworks aimed to revolve around the theme of Palestine, delve into the depth of our Arab values and culture, and represent the true meaning of peace, Abdal said.
He took Kuwait Times on a tour through his artworks, which conveyed multiple powerful spiritual and political messages. For instance, one of his paintings, which featured two different prophets’ stories, portrayed how self-isolation helps one to find their long-lost soul and strongly connect with it.
Another is inspired by preeminent philosopher and physician of the medieval Islamic world, Ibn Sina, showing how the Palestinian people are still able to hold on to their faith and feel contentment despite the war. An artwork included the Star of David, a popular Jewish symbol, which he incorporated in the painting to educate the world about the origins of this symbol that goes back to our ancient history and civilization, before being stolen by the Zionist entity, he explained.
“What’s really amazing about what Fareed Abdal has done is that he’s been able to give us a new way of looking at ink on paper, deconstructing words, meanings, poetry and many different impressions... Whenever I see some of his pieces, I keep on going back and I can see different types of layers and spaces between the boldness of the broad brushstrokes and the fineness of the lettering that becomes an interplay of his work,” said Lubna Abbas, a guest attending the exhibition.
In the “White Memory” exhibition, Ghassan Hamada, a Jordanian-Palestinian artist, used the medium of photography to present a series of monochrome portraits and installations that explore the Palestinians’ loss of their homeland in the Nakba in 1948. “A photo freezes a moment in time...and we tried as much as possible to document the last moments of these people’s lives,” said Hamada. According to him, all the photos were taken with mechanical traditional cameras to resemble the old time period these Palestinian people lived in.
He chose to name the exhibition “White Memory”, as it refers to the Palestinians’ dreams that still remind them of their homeland. “When they sleep, they don’t dream of anything but that they are still in Palestine,” Hamada said.
He explained that attached to each photograph capturing the face of a Palestinian person is a QR code that people can scan to listen to this person’s own story from birth until the moment they were expelled out of their home and forced to flee to camps in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. “You will hear from each person a completely different story from the other, but the only thing in common between them is their hope for return,” said Hamada.
Farideh Lashai Foundation held the final exhibition titled “Studies & Sketches For Crystal & Glass Design, & Other Works,” which presented a limited-edition portfolio of the Iranian artist Lashai, who passed away in 2013. The artworks included vases, silkscreens and other selected artworks from the private collections of Lashai.
