Sand Flowers installation.
2014

Concept

"Sand Flowers" by Shadia Alem

With the word, begins creativity and creation. The human imagination gives birth to words and images that it brings to life; proof that things of old and things past that human accumulations do not disappear, but rather they remain stored in our collective memory to merge, integrate and reappear through our different forms of expression.

With this installation, I attempt to gather what I have grasped from the Moallaqat, from the 2-dimensionality of the weave of its narrative and bygone symbolism on paper and to re-enact it in a 3-dimensional form. Thus, I attempt to rationalize old gems of description, using a new vocabulary that modern technology and materials allow.

I have attempted to give shape to the constellations and sand formations to which the poets devote such singing portrayals by re-imagining them as clusters of sand-flowers that represent the culture of desert, with plexi-glass to represent the transparency of the imagination and to hail verse as the purest of gifts which the Arabs had to offer.

I have chosen ghazal (courtship) excerpts from Imru’ Al-Qais’s poem that deal with the subject of love. Imru’ Al-Qais’s was supposedly the first to hang his poem on the Ka’ba, and others later followed his example.

I have also chosen verses from the moallaqa of Zuhayr bin Abi Salma that deal with the subjects of wisdom and war, verses that have stuck with me through years of study, proof that the Moallaqat do indeed become suspended in your mind. I have always considered these gems of advice to carry with me through life. Zuhayr is considered one of the greats, and even the Caliph Omar bin al-Khattab admired his poems. It was said that he was the poet of all poets because he never used excessive or unnecessary expression, never distorted logic, only spoke of what he knew and only praised the worthy. His verses were described as the hawliyat or the ‘cycles’ or ‘annuals’, as he used to compose the poem in a month and develop its form in a year, as time does when it transforms sand into expressive eternal floral shapes…

Medium : acrylic calligraphy on plexiglass

Photo credits : Shadia Alem