Forum of Yemeni and Arabic artists held

A forum for Yemeni and Arabic artists was held last Saturday at the Yemeni Cultural Center, organized by the Ministry of Culture in cooperation with more than 40 Yemeni, Tunisian, and Libyan artists. Pictures of different kinds and sizes were on show at the exhibition. 

“The aim of this forum is to let Yemeni and Arabic artists to get to know each other, to learn from each others experiences and to have a wonderful exhibition of both Arabs and Yemenis arts,” said Mohammed al-Maflihi, Minister of Culture.

Al-Maflihi said that this exhibition of visual art was the first of its kind in Yemen and aimed to bring artists from Tunis and Libya in order to show their own pictures in Yemen and give Yemenis the chance to see their civilization.   

“Sana’a is used to holding such exhibitions that aim to show youth initiatives. So, this exhibition is not the first because there have been many forums held in order to encourage creative youth people. But this one is unique because it allowed Arab artists to participate,” said al-Maflihi.  

“The forum was held under the slogan A World of More Humanity and it is a result of the participation between the Ministry of Culture and a number of artistic foundations in Tunisia,” said Najeeba Haddad, Undersecretary of Popular Arts and Theater at the Ministry of Culture. She said that this forum would last for ten days in order to let Yemenis and Arabs artists to know others’ experiences and exchange their views concerning the arts.

“Arabian artists will draw pictures about Yemeni civilization to take them to their countries so that their people can get to know Yemeni culture.” She said that this exhibition showed the ability of artists to draw amazing pictures and show off their countries’ civilization to others. 

Participants in the exhibition said that it allowed them to get to know about the Tunisian and Libyan civilizations and to show Yemeni culture to the Arab participants. “This exhibition is wonderful because it allowed us to get to know artists from other countries, not just Yemen and discover their art and their views on it,” said Jamila Mohammed, a participant in the exhibition. Mohammed won the World Tourism Day prize for women artists. “I was so happy that I won that prize; however, there were certainly many wonderful pictures drawn by professional artists.”  Mohammed added that in this exhibition, artists will be selected for an exhibition in Tunis. “This is also a good chance for Yemeni artists to take part in exhibitions in other countries.”   

Other participants agreed with Mohammed and said that this exhibition was a real chance to find out others’ experiences of drawing. “The idea of allowing Arab artists to join us in this exhibition was amazing. You know, we in this exhibition learnt how other artists paint pictures. Look at this picture, [pointing at a picture painted by a Tunisia artists] – it was painted by the integrated the color of the chemical materials from which medicines are made,” said Mohammed al-Yemeni, a participant. 

Al-Yemeni said that using these colors made wonderful pictures and distinguished them from other pictures shown in the exhibition. 

The Arab artists said that this exhibition gave them the chance to get to know each other’s culture and ways of drawing. “We [in Tunisia] are influenced by European civilization. Therefore, we paint differently to the way the Yemenis do,” said Khalifa al-Barad’ai, a participant from Tunis. He pointed out that in this exhibition they were able to get to know Arab civilization and Yemenis European civilization through their pictures. Al-Barad’ai added that artists can inspire each other; they can take the Yemeni civilization to Tunisia and show it to people there. 

People who attended the exhibition found the pictures on display very attractive. “I really did not imagine that the exhibition would be like this; it is amazing. The pictures are absolutely wonderful and attractive,” said Mohammed Ahmed, a student at Sana’a University. He said that this exhibition had given him the chance to know Arab culture better.     

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