Sharjah: Three Sharjah-based women artists spoke about their identity as expressed through their art at a workshop on Saturday, June 15 at the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation
The workshop, Muslima: Muslim Women’s Art and Voices, was held as part of a year-long international collaboration based on an online project of the same name.
The project was developed by the San Francisco-based online International Museum of Women in partnership with Sharjah Museums Department, the Women’s Museum in Aarhus, Denmark, and the Ayala Museum in the Philippines.
The online project provided a platform for talented Muslim women around the globe to exchange ideas and celebrate the way they see themselves in this world.
The Muslima exhibition featured art works, poetry, creative writing and new media created by Muslim women from all over the world.
A diverse selection of Muslim women artists from Sharjah had participated in the development of the online exhibition from the start, participating with artworks as well as creative writing.
The workshop featured three of the artists who contributed to the project.
During the workshop Dr Fatima Zahra Hassan presented a talk titled “Finding the Self through the Traditional Arts of Islam”, visual artist Haafiza Sayed discussed “The Path to Self-Realisation through the Medium of Paintings” and journalist and blogger Daliah Merzaban spoke on the subject of “Writing the Self: Reflections on expressing identity and spirituality through the art of the written words”.
The museum can be viewed online at muslima.imow.org. The work and voices presented in Muslima aims to inspire cross-cultural dialogue that will break down myths and stereotypes and build understanding.
Last year, the museum educated more than 600,000 online visitors from more than 200 countries and held events and “pop-up exhibitions” in countries including Spain, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Canada, the Ukraine, Latvia, Argentina, Germany, and the United States.
The exhibition website allows visitors to explore the website’s content by type, topic, most recent and favourite.
