Tag Archives: Dubai

National Day Weekend in Dubai!

Usually National Day weekend means either leaving the city for a weekend getaway with friends or family, or visiting the endless events, parades, brunch, etc, usually set up for the weekend. This year I decided to stay in and take part in the Dubai Family Street Markets in Dubai Marina Walk.

Having taken quite a hiatus from painting (apart from the quick watercolour sessions I’ve been recently taking to de-stress), I wanted to get back out there and go and meet people and see how they interact with my art.

I’ve spent the last few months representing and showcasing other amazing artists who have decided to collaborate with us on the AJALA Project and haven’t showcased my work at any fairs/events/etc. Luckily, this weekend was the perfect time to do so with amazing sunny/breezy weather and a great festive air at the Dubai Marina Walk.

We were set up by Plan3 Media at two different locations on two different days – On Friday the 2nd, the market was set up in front of Stefano’s and Nando’s in Marina Walk, on Saturday, the market was stationed in front of Dubai Marine Yacht Club. Both amazing locations with such great views of the Marina.  So much fun to watch and interact with all the young visiting families and Marina residents. With the amazing weather, I’m going to make sure to make more time to actively participate in these events.

Click on the individual thumbnails below to see the full sized image. Sorry for the low res images, my phone doesn’t take the best pictures :(.

My handpainted cushions
Loved being next to Nick – the hilarious shisha guy!
Some framed watercolor paintings of mine
Love these
Aww cute! Mason Jar Shishas!
Crowd
Night Crowd
Night doodles
More of the evening crowds
Should have bought another grate to put up the rest of my paintings…
Loved her things! Can’t remember her stall name unfortunately, but she does sell at Barsha Ripe Market
some of her bestsellers!
Another hilarious neighboring vendor selling custom painted shoes
Love!
De Facto – watercolor painting
Day 2
My art
Salaam Painting
Random paintings – The weeknd painting seemed to be really popular with pre-teens
a quick session before crowds arrived
JBR painting
JBR painting in my daily art book
Pilgrimage Watercolor Painting

You can also check out the rest of my paintings and cushions on this link:

http://www.littlemajlis.com/shop/narmeennasersart

 

For the Love of Dubai!

2 years ago, an Egyptian architect and photographer living in Dubai decided to start his own fitness community. He started to engage his network to come out and carry out various sporting activities with him, with each week that passed his network reached out to their own personal network and the group began expanding. He actively promoted fitness to his community while asking them to support various causes around the world and has now almost 2000 members in his community. Active members of his group, called ‘Dubai Daily Fitness’, are also encouraged to lead various fitness activities  and also take part in expeditions that would support social issues around the world. 2 years later, and 2000 members strong, Dubai Daily Fitness has proudly supported initiatives in over 10 different countries and created a large community of happy fitness enthusiasts in Dubai. His community has welcomed many newbies to Dubai and helped them feel at home by integrating them into their free community events and exploring the GCC together.

A local hero, Ahmad ElDessouki is admired for his activism and his commitment to strengthening his fitness group, on top of working full time in Dubai. Ahmad was featured on our AJALA project earlier this year and we were ecstatic to find out he wanted us to be a part of his group’s 2 year anniversary. This event took place on 11.11.16 at the amazing Warehouse Four. We had local fitness gurus teach various classes every hour from 8am to 6pm. Classes included Zumba, Contact Improv, Yoga, AcroYoga, Cardiofit, and Meditation by Taijitu House of Om. (If you haven’t heard of Taijitu House of Om before, its an open community center with a meditation room, Praying Altar, library, business centre, 2 activity rooms, outside lounge, fireplace, inside and outside kitchens, BBQ setups, swimming pool, fountain, water wheel, tree house, maid room, 5 bedrooms, recreational room and a guest room. – A must visit for any Dubai resident).

Upstairs, we at the AJALA Project engaged our local artists to come and provide free workshops for the DDF ( Dubai Daily Fitness) community. We also had amazing artists come and and paint live for the crowds. Such a beautiful intimate event and we were really honoured to be a part of it. The AJALA Project even got an unexpected award from the community for our dedication and commitment to social impact :).

Here are some pictures of our event:

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Ahmad Eldessouki!

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Acro Yoga Session

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Honouring the Awardees

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Honouring the Awardees

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Live Calligraffiti by Hicham El Yagoubi

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DDF’s most active warriors

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Our team!

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Workshopping

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Artist at work

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..and it begins

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Zambian Artist Victor Sitali created a piece based on our changemakers at the AJALA project

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Live Artists Victor and Hicham

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Yafa Goawily’s amazing mixed media workshop

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Bebo visits the art workshops

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With the amazing artist, Ria

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Final painting from the mixed-media workshop

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We also got the community kids to make cards for the Usmile Ismile initiative to hand out at orphanages in Kenya

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Some of the paintings created inspired by the AJALA Project Changemakers

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Gong Meditation was amazing!

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Hicham writing out some of the greeting cards

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Greeting Cards written by our volunteers to be given to children at orphanages by UsmileIsmile

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Our Award!

AJALA Project Video
AJALA Project Video
AJALA Project Video
AJALA Project Video
Victor Sitali Painting
Looks amazing with my handpainted Cushions!

The AJALA Project brings together a global community of Artists and Writers to showcase Changemakers and Inspiring Nomads creating a social impact around the world.

If you are an Artist and would like to work with us, email us at narmeen@theajalaproject.com.

If you are a changemaker or know a changemaker ( somebody creating a social impact for marginal communities or raising awareness for global issues), please send in this application form Changemaker Application Form

Follow The Ajala Project on Facebook, Medium and Instagram.

Next event coming up soon!

The AJALA Project – Call for Artist and Changemakers

AJALA Logo

 

The Ajala Project, a Dubai-based community art project, brings together a global community of change makers, nomads, storytellers, and artists to change narratives about underprivileged and voiceless communities around the world. It is a movement that aims to break down barriers between people and places through storytelling and visual arts. This project was conceptualized in June 2016 and consists of co-founders; Hassan Bayo, Giovanni Morra, and myself.

The objective of the project is to provide a platform to empower artists and writers and to showcase ordinary people doing extraordinary things. The artists who agree to collaborate will be matched up with grassroots changemakers around the world and will be asked to produce an artwork inspired by that changemakers journey and cause. The artist, changemaker, and story will all be published on our various platforms. Once the story and illustration is shortlisted by public voters, these illustrations will then be printed on merchandise, from which a percentage will be given to the artist.

Once you decide to join our project as an artist, we will require a short bio with a picture of you, we will pair you up with a nomad/changemaker and send you files relating to the nomad. We do recommend you do your own research, you are also free to connect with the nomad yourself for better inspiration.

Email us at change@theajalaproject.com or find us on FB at: the AJALA project

Art in Madrid

Just came back from a long and wonderful holiday.

Dubai -> LA -> Phoenix -> Madrid -> Cordoba -> Barcelona -> Rome -> Dubai

I’m still trying to wrap my head around all the art and architecture from all the cities I visited. I would definitely live in Europe. Although I am not a fan of Classical or Medieval Art, the techniques and colours used by the old Masters are beyond inspiring and can teach a lot to young artists like me.

These images are from Reina Sofia Museum and Prado Museum in Madrid. Prado Museum is the ultimate Classical and Medieval Art Museum. Amazing collection of El Greco, Rafael, Velasquez, Goya, and many other Dutch and Spanish Masters.  Reina Sofia offers a more modern collection and a collection I found more appealing as it provided a nice history of Spains wars and conflicts.

Handpainted Pillows – My new hobby

I have been quite busy lately with painting and sewing cushions. It all started in January when I had no idea what to give one of my best friends for her wedding. I do give away my paintings a lot so I didn’t think giving a painting as a wedding gift would be special enough. I searched through many DIY  wedding gift ideas on Pinterest which pointed me to cute custom-made cushions with the bride and grooms names on them. After calling several customized gift stores and canvas printing stores, it dawned on me that I may actually be able to do it  myself. These below are the ones I ended up painting for my friend.

My first ever handpainted cushions

 

Sewing on the pompoms were a pain. I’m still working on getting the finishing of my pillows up to retail quality but I am really struggling. Still need to learn to sew in a straight line. I’ve only just learnt to sew and it has been mainly from Youtube and some DIY sites.

 

I’ve started selling my pillows/cushions recently and have been getting requests too. I really enjoy making them. I can make 4 to 5 cushions in a day from start to finish whereas a full painting on canvas could take me weeks. Thoroughly enjoying these instant creative results. Here are a few more I have painted.  I made some smaller ones for better storage but I really prefer the look of the bigger ones. custom big grand don't turn your back to me this took me 15 minutes The back of my pillow olddubai fahidi/bastakiya round 2 round 1

 

pillow display more pillows painting display

 

Osama Mohammed is my absolute favourite Dubai artist. He’s been displaying his work at ARTE since the beginning about 15 years ago. SO TALENTED.

 

Osama Mohammed

 

I thought I’d also add my two recent commissioned paintings. I really love the Jumeirah Masjid one. I was asked to tone down my colours which I found extremely hard to do but I like how they turned out. I hope they still represent me as an Artist.

Jumeirah Masjid Reaching

Arte Market (Friday, June 13th, Times Square Mall)

It’s been more than a year since I displayed my work at an Arte Market here in Dubai. They are no longer held at Dubai Festival City and will only be at Times Square Mall from now on, unless they decide on another venue. Normally, Arte Markets are held on the first Friday of each month at Dubai Festival City and on the second Friday of each month at Times Square Mall. Today was the first time I set up a market in June and was pretty surprised to see it so busy.  I guess the unbearable heat outside coupled with everybody wanting to buy little gifts to take back home for the school summer holidays would explain the unusually dense crowd today at the usually empty Time Square Mall.

As I mentioned, I have not attended an Arte Market in a year and found the new collection of vendors really refreshing. I love to peoplewatch during these markets too as you can tell those individuals and families that are coming in to buy handmade and local produced crafts and art are not your regular Dubai-ites. As Dubai is home to almost all nationalities around the globe, its nice to see all the ‘bohemians’ of each culture coming in to sell their wares or buy local crafts.

 

Find all the vendors at Arte’s Facebook Page : https://www.facebook.com/ARTE

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The past few fairs I have participated in.

After a one year hiatus from displaying my work publicly in Dubai, I have returned with great response this March.  Previously I had only attempted to sell my paintings at the Arte markets in Festival City and Times Square, but this year I ventured on to two new venues; Wafi Bazaar and The Market of Everything in Safa Park.

I found out about the Wafi Bazaar through a flyer in the pantry of our office whilst working for Dubai International Film Festival. I signed up without having visited the fair so was quite anxious to display my paintings somewhere where I had no idea what the crowd would be like. Wafi isn’t the kind of place I find myself ever going to as it doesn’t have any of the trendy shops young crowds would be attracted to. In my opinion.

Nevertheless, despite the low footfall in the mall, I received amazing response from those visiting the fair and managed to sell a few paintings too! Other stalls at the market sold beautiful jewellery, hats, antiques, bookmarks, knives, handmade bronze spoons, Tunisian handmade bags and jewellery, among other beautiful things.

The Taste of Wafi is a another food fair that is now run alongside the Wafi Bazaar every Saturday till June 22nd. OMG. The Desserts! You need to have a ridiculous amount of disciple or have an aversion towards desserts to stay away from the delicious goods sold downstairs. Amazing truffles, biscuits, brownies, cakes, and chocolates, all made at home by residents of Dubai. The displays of each food stall are highly impressive and I definitely recommend visiting the Taste of Dubai any one of these upcoming Saturdays.

The Market of Everything was held behind the Archive in Safa Market. It’s not a market that is held very regularly. Unfortunately for those of us selling our crafts, we had a lot of overflow from people visiting the Flea Market in Safa Park so many of the visitors seemed a bit shocked when they found out are goods were not for less than 10dhs. The weather was amazing and there was a live DJ, with a band performing later on in the afternoon. Next time I need to remember to bring a beach umbrella as this sun burn of mine is highly unbecoming.

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