Commissioned for Sharjah Islamic Art Festival 2023

For this iteration of the “Sacred Spaces” project, this piece, “Sacred Orbits”, creates an ethereal space to immerse people in her grandfather’s imaginative world where spirituality, meditation and tranquility go hand in hand with playfulness, a sense of humor and openness to people, which is an encapsulation of how he was.

“Sacred Orbits” continues adapting her grandfather’s drawings into embroidery on sheer fabric collectively sewn by the family, and adds another element of interplay between light, shadows and circular movements. Her grandfather used to love the toy – spinning tops – he used to carve them out of wood and embellish them with pens and watch them endlessly spinning on metal trays. The memory of the spinning tops sparked an interesting revelation, how the spiritual and sacred nature of the circle as a shape can be experienced in a playful and light manner.

Hence, “Sacred Orbits” is an interactive and whimsical installation that invites the audience to a spiritual and meditative journey. The installation consists of a cylindrical core of embroidered sheer fabric lit from within, and an outer layer of an engulfing blank white fabric with the shadows of the embroidery projected on. As people approach the embroidered fabric, they are encouraged to interact with the cylindrical fabric by moving the lever to rotate it. This circular movement of the fabric animates the shadows on the backdrop to create that moment of immersion with the shadows rotating around people harkening back to the artist’s grandfather wooden spin toys and patterns.

Recipient of the Misk Grant 2021

Organza fabric, cotton thread, aluminum rods (collection of 7)

100 x 150cm (each piece)

Collection of Misk Art Institute, Riyadh

Sacred spaces is an installation that consists of hanging sheer fabrics that feature hand-embroidered superimposed patterns which represent a specific style of drawing that the artist’s grandfather practiced. Alwan grew up watching her grandfather ritually draw hundreds of patterns on pages for hours- a tradition that stemmed from his childhood through a process of serenity, meditation, repetition and immersion. Sacred Spaces is a work that adapts these drawings from paper to a spatial installation, referencing elements from our shared cultural identity within the Arab world.

What started as an introspective experiment developed into a shared family activity that entailed a collective meditative feel and a sense of bonding among members with stories exchanged during sewing. Patterns and drawings have always been associated with spirituality; whether it is in Islamic art and geometry or vernacular architecture. Alwan references the spiritual nature of these shapes in her work. She projects her perceived identity through the work and attempts to re-tell a story that crosses generations and brings it to a broader audience as a shared meditative experience.

Commissioned by 1971 Design Space, the two installations were conceived to celebrate the 50th Emirati national day in collaboration with Abdulla Buhijji.

“The tree of the Union is bearing more fruit, its roots are extending, and its goodness is overflowing; and this tree shall so remain for all future generations.”

Inspired by the above quote from the Founding Father Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the proposed installations depict the notions of “unity and growth”, both installations speak to each other, while one installation represents unity, the other installation shows flourishment and growth as a result of unity.

Reflective stainless steel, 3 x 3.2m

2021

Collaboration with Abdulla Buhijji

This art piece is part of a pop up art exhibition (Mawall) at the Bahrain International Airport. It is inspired by a song sung by women on the shore to bid the men going to the sea farewell. Its been said that the title of the song calls out for the sea to repent. Women, back in the day, gathered palm tree leaves and wood and used it to start a fire prior to singing the song. This song represents the strength and defensive demeanor that women put on as a means of threatening and scaring the sea with fire, to ensure the safe return of their men. This installation depicts this song by gathering palm tree leaves in a sculptural manner, painted with a gradient of red to represent the burning leaves and to depict a moment of time within this song.

This art piece is part of a pop up art exhibition (Mawall) at Bahrain International Airport. It represents a song that speaks about the countdown to the bride's day to join her husband's house. The song is represented by the projection of thirty traditional Bahraini percussion instrument Tara with the moon cycle painted upon them. The art installation whimsically represents the song by combining the moon cycle, which is the traditional means of measuring time and days, superimposed on the celebratory Tara.

Muharraq, 2021

Collaboration with Abdulla Buhijji

What(a)rainbow is an art piece that is part of a pop up art exhibition (Mawall) at Bahrain International Airport. It symbolises the traditional rituals that celebrate new brides in the "jelwa" celebrations. Inspired by Whatrainbow, a traditional Bahraini song that is sung in Jelwas, this art piece tells a story of the origins of the song. Whatrainbow a colloquial bahraini term symbolises a song that is sung while women in the traditional Jelwa wave pieces of colourful cloth upon the bride's head representative of the colours eventually merging into white. The origins of the term comes from a segment of a foreign song that goes "White rainbow while you and me". This is a great depiction of Bahrain's heritage being a melting pot of different layers of culture woven together. The art piece is depicted by different acrylic pieces of different colours placed upon each other with traditional embellishment found on the Jelwa garment Jalabeya engraved on them.

Muharraq, 2021

For anyone who ever lost a home, everyone who is saddened to see a city emptied of its inhabitants, and everyone grieving for a beautiful forgotten abandoned part of a city racing towards development. The piece is an attempt to convey the essence of the place; the fact that the space is what people make of it, a canvas to their memories old and new. In this many of us seek consolation, it gives us hope that a space will forgive us, and will allow us to make it ours again.

The concept was to bring in a group of people to an abandoned building and managing them in leaving a livening mark on it, using paint and performers symbolically. The piece, in that sense, was the artist’s attempt to re-inject life the dead space, while highlighting the juxtaposition of colors, materials, function of space, and the demographics of users/inhibitors.

Muharraq, 2017

Third place winner in the Bahrain 45th Annual Art Fair 2019

“In-retrospect” is a context generated installation that depicts the juxtaposition between memories and physical space. Yearning for her childhood, the artist revisited her old family house in Manama after relocating 15 years ago. The nostalgia brought back imagery of football tournaments on the streets, the mischievous runs to the “coldstore” to eat ice-cream on Fridays and the afternoon strolls with the neighbours kids. These memories were created on the main street in front of the building; this was a clear depiction of the fluid boundary between private and public spaces. With the increasing development of housing and cities around notions of privacy, the feel of community and social spaces are diminishing. “In-retrospect” is a manifestation of the stories that were generated in and around the house, in a form of clouds of memories that spill out of the building to show the inhabitation of previous generations as another layer on the existing physical space.

Manama, 2019

Collaboration with Muneera Al Awadhi

In areas that are appealing for commercial investments, green spaces get destroyed in favor for money-making developments; a default accepted practice as the greenery does not hold return value. Block 338 in Adliya Bahrain became a booming young commercial district in Manama after being a seaside green residential village. The district demolished its last green farm to provide a parking lot for the growing number of visitors. A protest is vision of trees aligned with torches in protest of being neglected and forgotten.

Twenty-one poles varying in heights arranged in a grid with 0.7m intervals. Poles are topped by unified light fixtures, creating an array of lights on four different levels. The installation is placed on the edge of the parking lot in small leftover of the farm it replaced, places in an enclosure of existing trees and palm trees. The installation also aims to be draw attention to potential public spaces, activate an abandoned location and create a public space in an urban congested area.

Adliya, 2017

Collaboration with Muneera Al Awadhi

Mass Appeal is a marketing tool that strips down the product of features to make it basic enough to be appealing for the maximum number of people, in complete disregard to their demographics and interests. Mass appeal is the opposite of targeted marketing and it helped selling products to bigger audiences in Mass Media age. The concept behind this installation is to argue that nowadays, in Social Media age, the Mass-Appeal tool is being applied to people by their own selves, stripping themselves from individuality pleading for mass appeal.

A sculpture of a metal pipe bent in continuity to form seat and an overhang. The seating arrangement is divided to two groups; a cluster of four seat and one seat that sites alone. The four seat that are arranged in a close a proximity and are in different levels overseeing each other. A corresponding light design completes the installation with having one faded warm white light shining on the each of the four seats eyelevel, and a rainbow colored light shine on the individual seat.

Materials: Metal pipes, metal elbows, steel coated wood, light fixtures, and colored film.

Size: 2.7m x 2.2m. Height: 2m.

Exhibited at The Nest Festival 2018

Adliya, 2018

As the Bahraini culture became less dependent on walking as a means of transport the less we started accounting for walkability in our cities, and the more we started forgetting the vernacular processes that shaped our city. The Bahraini neighborhood was shaped in response to the social and environmental needs. The less we understand this, the less culturally and environmentally relevant our cities became. The aim of this project was to engage youth to experience the urban fabric of the old city of Muharraq, to make the city more relatable and to revive and preserve the vernacular solutions.

A route was selected to cover the major elements of traditional Bahraini urban-fabric. To increase interaction between participants and the space, a series of installations were placed in each stop. Installations allowed participants to engage with the space enough to understand its dimensions, materials, environmental and social qualities. The experimental project successfully engaged the participants as well as residents of the area. The elements selected to be highlighted from the traditional Bahraini urban fabric included: Baraha, Daoos, Souq, and Amara

Muharraq, 2019

Absence is a project executed as part of the Ofoq Public Art Residency in Egypt. Absence is an installment that is part of the artist’s series of works that explore the relationship between the people/space, the seen/unseen, and the tangible/intangible. In “Absence”, the artist explores the imbalance in cities, as some areas around Cairo suffer from complete congestion, and in contrast, vast unused spaces are left to be. The art installation inhabits the skeletal structure of a building and serves as a reminder for passers by to imagine an alternative use of existing spaces, while expressing the dynamic relationship between space and time.

Materials: fabric, acrylic paint 

Cairo, 2019

In collaboration with Shaun Baranyi, Brian Fiscus, John Jiang and Zack Nolen

As part of the Play Elements module under the guidance of Professor Julia Jamrozik at the University at Buffalo, the brief challenged the students to create playscapes that are engaging, temporary and portable. Three play elements were designed and executed, one that is passive, and engages users with their surrounding contexts. The other two instigate active play. A range of materials were used to execute the play elements: yarn, duct tape, plastic hoops, car tyres, cardboard, yoga balls and construction nets.

Buffalo, 2016

Based within a heavily collaborative society entails certain unspoken rules that society imposes and people subconsciously grow to abide by without questioning its validity.

“Regulatory Rules” is the title of an art work exhibited for “By the Book” exhibit in Birmingham, UK. “Regulatory Rules” is a play on existing road signs that we have grown accustomed to. It manipulates the signs graphically to highlight some of the spatial and social issues we encounter. It aims to provoke people to think critically about the information they receive from society everyday.

Birmingham, 2017

Amplified is an innovative spatial experience that evokes sensory responses and is activated through the intersection of art, architecture, music, and technology. Amplified is a multi-sensory spatial experience that encourages engagement, celebrates density and merges traditional music with the contemporary.

The installation consists of a series of motion sensitive pillars, strategically placed to encourage social interaction while respecting social distancing.

When an individual draws close to a pillar, a singular musical beat is activated. As more people approach the installation, the rest of the pillars are triggered playing more beats, and adding musical layers to the piece.

A complete musical composition can be heard when all the pillars are activated and the installation is at its maximum capacity. The installation illustrates the Kingdom of Bahrain pavilion’s theme, highlighting the potential and impact of density through music and audience interaction.

Artists:

Noor Alwan

Abdulla Buhijji

Jaffar Al Haddad

Powered and sponsored by Taa Al Shabab and its contributors for its participation in the Kingdom of Bahrain pavilion.

Collaboration with TOFI & JA++

Participants:

Mohamed Al Hassan

Mohamed Buallay

Abdulmonem Ali

Polished glass, stainless steel, sensors, motors, LED lights

4 x 2.1m

TOFI | Noor Alwan x Abdulla Buhijji

Theories of Imagination (TOFI), made up of Noor Alwan and Abdulla Buhijji, offers an inspection on the concept of identity that is forward-looking into the future. Their digital installation acts as an intervention that pairs the quest for personal identity with the want for belonging. Their artwork catapults visitors out of their stream of consciousness and choreographs their movement toward a group of mirrors. Each time the audience answers a question, the mirror moves for them to go in and out of the installation. The installation offers a self reflective journey and allows for moments of true candor.