Artists Workshop: The Future of Traditions Writing Pictures

The Future of Traditions Writing Pictures: Contemporary Art from the Middle East

A workshop with artists from the SOAS Brunei gallery exhibition, on show from 12 January to 25 March 2023

Etel Adnan – Joumana Al Hosseini – Maliheh Afnan – Siah Armajani – Nja Mahdaoui – Mohammad Ehsaey – Ahmed Moustafa – Hassan Massoudy – Ali Omar Ermes – Rachid Koraichi – Enayatollah Nouri – Mehdi Qotbi – Mouneer Al Shaarani – Hossein Valamanesh – Khaled Ben Slimane – Chant Avedissian – Walid Siti – Fathi Hassan – Parastou Forouhar – Susan Hefuna – Halim Al Karim - Farhad Moshiri – Katayoun Rouhi – Mahmoud Obaidi – Bita Ghezelayagh – Manal Al Dowayan – Farnaz Jahanbin – Hanieh Delecroix – Joumana Medlej – Nayla Romanos Iliyia – Farhad Ahrarnia – Said Baalbaki – Mahmoud Bakhshi – Shakir Hassan Al Said – Christine Khondjie – Kamal Boullata – Jacqueline Béjani

This exhibition is about three generations of artists from Iran and the Arab world, from the early pioneers of a vernacular Lettrism movement in the 1960s till now. It includes a few exceptional contemporary calligraphers, but mainly those only occasionally incorporating the written word in their works today.

These artists, from different backgrounds and possessing diverse styles, take inspiration from their own culture; they use the morphology of letters and phonemes, the rhymes and rhythms of calligraphy, abstracting words into pictures and thoughts into images.

The result over the past six decades has been the creation of an alternative and original approach to modernism and contemporary art, while representing the birth of new and different aesthetics. The exhibition also includes some examples of early calligraphy from SOAS Library and is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue.

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