Together with Khalid Al Budoor, Nujoom Alghanem and Fatima Al Budoor talked with us about their garden, a common ground where unusual flowers grow.
Nujoom Alghanem is an Emirati artist, poet, scriptwriter and multi award-winning film director. She was born in Dubai in 1962, has published eight poetry collections and produced eleven films including five short fictions and six feature length documentaries. Her films have won local, regional and international prizes. She is the founder of Nahar Productions, a film production company based in Dubai and a professional trainer in filmmaking and creative writing. She was participating artist in the exhibition at the UAE Pavilion, 57th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia, 2017 and is currently working on fellow artist Hassan Sharif (1951-2016) film. She earned a Master’s degree in film production from Griffith University School of Film in Australia, and a Bachelor’s degree in television production from Ohio University. More info: https://www.naharproductions.ae/
Watch Interview: Nujoom AlGhanem
Fatima Al Budoor – Born in Dubai, Fatima is a UAE national who has lived and studied in Dubai, Boston, London and Dublin. As an artist and traveller, Fatima’s work combines photography, printmaking, writing and drawing. She focuses on transient experiences in life as well as familial and interpersonal relationships. Fatima’s prints have been featured and exhibited in the Boston Museum of Fine Art’s William Morris Hunt Memorial Library as well as in various exhibitions in Boston, Dubai and Venice. She received a BFA in Studio Art from Northeastern University and School of Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA. Fatima completed the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artist Fellowship (SEAF 2016) in Abu Dhabi, and since then has been working out of her studio in Dubai. More info: http://www.fatimaalbudoor.com/
Portrait of Nujoom Alghanem and Fatima Albudoor
– تحت ظلال الأقمار – (
Under the shadow of the Moons)
CharLes © 2017
(Spy mirror, liquid paraffin, copper wire, iridescent pale gold and interference blue Williamsburg handmade oil colors on glass, Monnaie du Pape (lunaria annua) seed leafs from Hélène van Spaendonck’s garden on music ‘Caruso’ by Lucio Dalla, poem ‘منفذ’ by Nujoom Alghanem and extract of ‘interpreter of maladies’ by jhumpa lahiri)
« No one at school talked about the war followed so faithfully in my living room. We continue to study the American Revolution, and learned about the injustices of taxation without representation, and memorized passages from The Declaration of Independence. During recess the boys would divide in two groups, chasing each other wildly around the swings and seesaws, Redcoats against the colonies. In the classroom our teacher, Mrs. Kenyon, pointed frequently to a map that emerged like a movie screen from the top of the chalkboard, charting the route of the Mayflower, or showing us the Liberty Bell. Each week two of the class gave a report on a particular aspect of the Revolution, and so one day I was sent to the school library with my friend Dora to learn about the surrender at Yorktown. Mrs. Kenyon handed us a slip of paper with the names of three books to look up in the card catalogue. We found them right away, and sat down at a low round table to read and take notes. But I could not concentrate. I returned to the blond-wood shelves, to a section I had noticed labeled « Asia ». I saw book about China, India, Indonesia, Korea. Eventually I found a book titled Pakistan: A Land and Its People. I sat on a footstool and opened the book. The laminated jacket crackled in my grip. I begun turning the pages, filled with photos of rivers and rice fields and men in military uniforms. There was a chapter about Dacca, and I began to read about its rainfall, and its jute production. I was studying a population chart when Dora appeared in the aisle. « What are you doing back here? Mrs. Kenyon’s in the library. She came to check up on us. »
I slammed the book shut, too loudly. Mrs. Kenyon emerged, the aroma of her perfume filling up the tiny aisle, and lifted the book by the tip of its spine as if it were a hair clinging to my sweater. She glanced at the cover, then at me.
« Is this book a part of your report, Lilia? »
« No, Mrs. Kenyon. »
« Then I see no reason to consult it, » she said, replacing it in the slim gap on the shelf.
« Do you? »
Extracts of the Salon AlHadiqa (The Garden)
- It is the time you have wasted for your rose which makes your rose so important” Antoine de Saint Exupéry – What for and how do you waste your time? by Nujoom
- Did you learn more playing in the garden with your parents or at art school abroad in the US ? by Fatima
- How did you survive to the free verse poetry desert? by Khalid
- Hassan Sharif, the Ghaf tree (resistance – self sufficiency)? by Nujoom
- In the jungle of today art world, does it help for a woman-artist to wear a ring ? by Fatima
- About Nujoom’s secret garden
- Do you consider the roof of Le Louvre Abu Dhabi as fascinating as your favorite flower the hydrangea? by Fatima
by CharLes