Our Progress on the Final Project

While brainstorming and researching for our project, we came up with a lot of different ideas that we eventually had to try our best to combine.

Ideas and Concepts:
- Real Stories (Inspiring stories with morals)
- Truths and Myths (Things that people think are true but are not actually true)
ex: 1. women in the gulf are abused 2. women in the gulf are not convinced with what they wear.. etc
- Religion and Beliefs
- Contemporary Culture (Our new evolving culture)
- Similarities and Differences (We always try to point out the things that makes us different and separate us, but forget the things that makes us similar)
- Stereotypes
- Cause and Effect

Possible Vehicles:
- Trading Cards/Flash Cards/Card Game
- Illustrations of Keywords on panels

We debated over the idea of a card game for a while, but decided that it wasn't in keeping with our concept, which is more about trading ideas, not comparing them. We landed on an idea that came about because of a photography exhibit that Maitha mentioned to us. The photographer had done a series of several photographs that all had the same compositions, but different subject matter. We agreed that this went along quite well with our concept that we are all different, but similar, and it is only when we share our thoughts that we accomplish the ultimate goal of understanding and peace.

Our vehicle will consist of 16 panels of MDF- each 15x15 inches. Each of the group members will be responsible for 4 of the panels and has total freedom as to what they what to put on the panels, as long as they have a triangle in the center of the composition. When the panels are turned over, as the viewer will be instructed to do, the 16 panels together will form a new image with a large triangle across them all. We chose a Triangle to symbolize the 3 different cultures that make up our group (Korean, American, Emirati).

We made the news!

This group photo, taken at Sheikh Nahyan's farm house was published in yesterday's newspaper. We were all very excited!

Catching Up: June 30- July 2

Since the talk with the creator of Freej, we have been moving forward at a faster pace with our final project. We've been working out the kinks within our group and have the materials ready to start working on the physical aspects of the project. Khadeeja purchased 16 15"x15" panels of MDF on which we are going to paint and print on in the upcoming days. Our concept is that unless we share our thoughts and stories with one another, we cannot see the big picture- a unified and peaceful world. We were inspired by one quote in particular- "The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety."

On Wednesday, July 1st we went to a gallery talk lead by our art history professor, Ron Hawker, on Ancient Islamic Art in Farjeem Gallery, a gallery in DIFC.

We walked around the area and visited several other galleries with all kinds of art from all over the world. One of the galleries was Cuadro. Another was the Opera gallery.

Later that day we went to a catered panel discussion at the Dubai Ladies Club. Emily and Sunny represented MICA on the panel and talked about their experiences with art exchange programs- this one in particular. We also discussed about the identity and how we can change peoples' perception by sharing arts (Method of communication).

Art and design is the greatest tool to communicate and spread ideas and culture.
We feel that it is our responsibility to share our experiences and spread what we have learned to the public.

On Thursday, July 2nd, we visited Sheikh Nahyan at his farm house. We ate a huge lunch there and talked to him briefly about our program. There was more food on the table than any of us had ever seen. It was surreal!

After lunch the Sheikh insisted that the provost of UAE University take us on a short tour of the facilities. He showed us a research lab where we saw a robot that they had been working on. He was capable of using social networking sites like facebook. The also had several other projects in progress around the lab.

This week we will have 4 days of studio time before the final exhibition. Now that the blog is up to date, we are going to start printing and painting on the MDF.

from Bern

"Group work"
is it about Me or We?

Talk with Mohammed Saeed Harib, Creator of Freej

E- On Monday we got a talk from Freej creator, Mohammed Saeed Harib. He gave us a brief overview of his childhood and his career and how he overcame obstacles to get to where he is now. He faced adversity due to being Muslim in America after 9/11, and pretty much had no choice but to leave the country before even finishing his degree. Despite all of this he has come to be one of the most successful animators worldwide. His story was totally inspiring.

S- Mohammed Saeed Harib said,"Do something different" and "Make your own steps to move ahead."
The way he presents culture is powerful. He uses cartoon with sense of humor and imagination as a tool to share the culture with people.
He went beyond the screen and created "Freej Folklore," which integrates both theater and Freej cartoon. The human physical moves and the body language that the performance create with the cartoon was very beautiful. All the elements, such as sound, dance, and cartoon come together and share the story with people on live.
This idea of all elements coming together and creating one explicit work of art made me to realize that the works our group is creating is clearly related.

M- It was good listening to him speak. I thought i knew a lot about this person, but it turns out i knew so little. His story is interesting and inspiring...

Freej Cartoon Trailer


Freej Folklore Clip


Mohammed Saeed Harib
Freej
Freej Folklore

Starting the Final Project and Visit to the DXB-LAB

Yesterday we met in our project groups to discuss a final project- both the concept and the vehicle. Our group had been thinking about the word swap and its connotations. Our thoughts went towards cards- trading cards, playing cards, flash cards, etc. because they are swapped between people or groups of people, and because they can be flipped over to reveal 2 different sides. We felt that this aesthetic would compliment our mission statement and group name. We decided that last night we would think individually about what we wanted to do more specifically- what kind of cards, what kind of materials, how many, the content of the cards, etc.

After a group critique session we took a trip to DXB-LAB, a very prestigious Dubai based architecture firm that has worked on some of the most famous buildings in the city.
Here are some photos from the presentation.

Through this visit we learned that even an architectural project requires the hands and eyes of many people from many disciplines and many places. Each project at the firm passes through the hands of each architect in the firm as well as many outsourced contractors, model makers, and suppliers internationally. This relates to our project in that they are sharing their own skills and swapping ideas, much like we are doing in our group. We realize now that this kind of global collaboration has become a major part of the design industry.

Photo Entry for Week One

In the first week we started going on cultural trips as a large group. We visited the Jumeirah Mosque, the Sharjah Museums of Art and Architecture, and the Shelter, an art gallery/cafe where we worked with artist Ebon Heath on his newest typographical sculpture instillation. These are some pictures from those trips.

"Jumeirah Mosque"

"Sharjah Museums of Art and Architecture"

"@ Shelter"

On day 3,we met Ebon Heath(Brooklyn Artist) and Mona Ibrahim (a Dubai- based Jewelery designer) to assist them with their collaborative installation for stereo.type exhibition that was going to be held @ 50°c , Souq Albahar. The installation was basically a typographic hanging sculpture of laser-cut papers that created sentences from different languages when put together. Ebon briefed us a bit about his work at first and told us about his vision ,which was "Listening with your eyes" versus "listening with your ears" a concept that he repeatedly used in his work.

These experiences gave us inspiration to start talking about and creating our artwork and the concepts behind it. By sharing these experiences we have been able to find common ground. It was a great starting point to begin swapping our own opinions and thoughts because we felt much more comfortable around each other.

As a homework assignment, we were told to extract patterns from our own pictures or sketches and create a digital file from which to screenprint. We used Emily's pattern- an ornate trim from the walls of the mosque and printed them onto wooden panels that we had painted on a previous studio day. We documented our first screenprinting experience.

From here we have started to explore other methods of printmaking as well as think about our concept and our vehicle. Recently we have started to talk about the idea of smaller wood panels as interactive trading or playing cards on which we will print a logo on one side, illustrations, and textual examples of culture on the opposite side. We hope to have a clearer concept soon.