DANISH ARTISTS AND SCIENTISTS GO TO THE EMIRATES

 

An important cultural project comprising artists, architects, poets and scholars from Denmark in cooperation with colleagues from the Arabian world will take place in The Emirat of Sharjah this November.

The project is a result of an agreement forged in 2001 between the two states, and it will be the 6^th time, Denmark visits Sharjah. This time with an exhibition of the result of 4 years work with subjects concerning art for the public space combined with lectures. The exhibition will be opened on the 12^th  November and takes place at the Sharjah Art Museum while the educational part will be performed on the two universities of Sharjah.

The activities that are a part of the cultural exchange program between Sharjah and Denmark, or are affiliated to them, have been generously supported by the Department of Culture & Information in the government in Sharjah and the Danish Arts Council’s Committee for International Visual Art, under the Ministry of Culture, as well as by other of the Ministry’s Art Foundations. Financial assistance has also been provided by a number of private foundations in Denmark.

The exhibition entitled Nomad Academy Goes Public signals the interim rounding off of the official program.

The exhibition includes 10 different projects. The overall aim is to present the power of art and architecture as being visual examples of transcultural and interdisciplinary collaboration, which is one of the essential elements of coexistence.

To mention some of the projects you will find “Sharjah Dialogues” which consist of two talking benches, one inside the museum and one outside within the urban space of the city of Sarah. Each bench has a soundtrack with a conversation between a man and a woman on various subjects to which one can listen while having a rest. The project is created by the Danish visual artist  Peter Holst Henckel in cooperation with the Danish  writer Ursula Andkjaer Olsen, and the dialogues are brought on the tapes by the voices of two Arabs staying in Denmark, both actors and poets – Duna Ghali and Fanar Ghali.

Another is a row of 16 empty canvases with only poems on them, called “Paint the Desert”.

The project addresses itself to the conception of the desert as an empty space, and is made by the visual artist Stig Brøgger to provoke the observer to paint his own imaginary pictures – and as inspiration for a workshop for the students at the Sharjah Academy of Fine Arts.

The Danish performer Kirsten Delholm brings an example of her very special kind of modern theatre called Hotel Pro Forma to Sharjah. She has done a videotaped installation on the subject “travelling into new cultures with you body and soul”. The performance is a variation of episodes taking place in a big international hotel's many different sections – lobby, reception, conference rooms, shops and restaurant. 

Two of the projects have a larger scale.

One is some 30 suggestions shown in models of how to build an Arabic Institute of Culture in Copenhagen. The project is made by students of the School of Architecture in Århus, supervised by Hans Feldthusen. The models have already with great impact been shown in Copenhagen.

The other a new interpretation of the ancient Arabic Moonlight Garden – The Moonlight Oasis, made by the Danish sculptor, professor Mogens Møller and the Danish architect Jane Havshøj collaborating with the astrologist from Iran, Nasser Moaedi Jorfi, the Iraqi/Danish astrophysicist Salim Abdali, the archaeologist dr. Abdul Al-Azzawi from Sharjah and two more Danes, the poet Lars Bukdahl and the light artist Flemming Brandtbjerg.

The Moonlight Oasis is protected at one side by a barchans dune with the shape of a crescent moon which is developed by the constant wind blowing from the same direction as is occurs in the deserts of The United Arabic Emirates. Water will flow over the brink of the dune to the slip face, which is orientated to a circular pavilion. Six columns bear the vaulted ceiling aloft. Like the sand dune itself, the pavilion’s elevated surface will be covered with tiles and there will be cushions for the comfort of sitting guests. The image of the moon is reflected down onto a circular shaped surface of sandblasted glass situated in the centre of the pavilion’s vault. The mirror image of the moon will be so sharp and large that the mountains of the moon will be clearly visible. Nowhere on earth does such a gigantic image of the shapes of the moon throughout the year exist, but here – if the project is brought to life.

The Moonlight Oasis will exactly as the ancient garden be a enchanted place, where poets recitate, where the music sounds and where spiritual dancing takes place. But there will also be a new dimension, a spa with relaxing facilities and also offers for treatment with Islamic herbal medicine with all it’s healing powers.

The main forces behind the cultural collaboration – which has also brought artists and exhibitions from Sharjah to Denmark, are the visual artist Dorte Dahlin and the former headmaster of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Else Marie Bukdahl.

Further and in depth information about the exhibitions, seminars, publications and other activities that the Nomad Academy has arranged, initiated or in some way has been involved with, can be found on the Nomad Academy’s website: www.nomad-academy.org.
 

A complete catalogue telling about the exhibition and related events are available in English.

Please contact press-agent Jette Sachs, jettesachs(at)email.dk  or phones +45 38877612 and

+45 21620418.

 
Copenhagen 21. October 2008

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