Artist Statement for Global Citizen Show.
As an artist, I have to think of the problems that I do not have an answer for. To find an answer, I present the question in the form of three dimensional expressions.
Regardless of political conflicts between nations, the environmental problems that pollute our water, soil and air must be approached from a unified global perspective. By looking at the world as one community, one can transcend differences such as ethnicity, age, and class. The importance of a safe environment for all rises to the surface over these types of social-political conflicts. Environmental tragedies such as global warming,
Desertification and hurricanes prevail in the world now like never before. We are surviving these tragedies through the good will of the people who help out after a disaster has already struck. I classify a negative attitude as criminal when it becomes the reality.
Research shows the environmental impact of advanced technology: rapid depletion of the natural resources necessary to produce it, excessive energy consumption necessary to sustain it, and the bio-hazard caused from its disposal. People tend to see only the benefits of using postindustrial technology and how it makes life more enjoyable in the present without giving thought to its impact on future generations.
Even when we are conscious of the negative impacts of technology on the environment, we ignore this for the sake of hunting the exciting moments of our actions. Eventually we lose the ability to see both sides of the situation and enjoy the moment while victimizing ourselves. It is exactly like when one spends an exorbitant amount of money to watch a boxing match, getting the closest seat to the ring in order to see someone's brain being damaged or destroyed. In the excitement of competitions, whether between individuals, nations or businesses, one does not consider the outcome, feeling no sympathy for other living organisms or caring about the essential resources necessary to sustain our life.
Mohamed-Saeed Omer
Columbus, 2005
Artist Statement for Bead Painting
In the last four years I was intensively searching for beads. I went on field trips, looked at picture books and through the internet web sites. I gathered information and looked at beads and their role in the African culture, focusing on my own region around the Valley of the River Nile. I visited museums in Sudan, Egypt and the United States searching and digging to see old beads and selected stones, which were found in graves of kings of the past. I studied them in order to touch the hidden aesthetic value that made them praised by people through out history. In my homeland country, Sudan, one kind of seeds "Laloubaa" which is well known for its attachment to Soufi’s spiritual long prayers, drew my attention to look at beads in the region.
In discovering the relation between past and present, artifacts and lifestyle, the remaining history and today's beauty standards, I found beads played a major role in being a fundamental beauty object for the people who lived in that area. In fact beads were the most popular trade items with Africans during the time before colonization.
African people love beads, they give life and meaning to them, seeds, shells, stones and small items by linking them to real life. In addition to decorating, coloring and beautifying the surface of the human body, beads fulfill the task of keeping essential memories of social relations. They are used in a creative fashions to tell stories of beauty, praise kings and ordinary people and give pride to heroes, mainly and mindfully by adhering them to their bodies.
In this series of paintings I was inspired by the thousands of years of cultural practice of use of beads in Africa. There is immense stimulation in seeing and feeling the beauty of bodily accessories that are rooted deep in the culture, holding the same quality of beauty and artistic designs, and still revealing the same joy. I recalled the power of collecting, I collected some beads, necklaces and found items, overlapped them with colors, and attached them to the paintings. I was trying to get to the three dimensional beauty of these small sculptures and to explore the negative space that surrounds the beads. In a way, I did not want to remain technical and faithful to the known academic methods of delivery.
Mohamed-Saeed
New York, September 2009
Hamza El Din -- 1929-2006
Hamza El Din, the celebrated Nubian musician whose rich fusion of Arabic and Nubian sounds entranced audiences worldwide and inspired colleagues like the Grateful Dead and Kronos Quartet, died Monday, May 22nd, at a Berkeley hospital from a gallbladder infection. He was 76. A longtime Oakland resident, Mr. El Din was a subtle master of the oud, the Arabic precursor of the lute, and the tar, the single-skinned drum that originated in Nubia, the ancient upper Nile land that was largely submerged after the Aswan Dam was built in the 1960s. Mr. El Din sought to preserve his native culture, singing Nubian songs and stories in a warm, reedy voice that merged with his instrumental overtones to create music of quiet intensity and beauty."It was mesmerizing. Hypnotic and trancelike,'' said Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. "Hamza taught me about the romancing of the drum. His music was very subtle and multilayered.
"He was a deep listener,'' added Hart, who practiced daily for six years to master the tar Mr. El Din gave him. Sometimes the music they played together was so soft "we could hardly hear ourselves. He'd just suck you into this vortex, and all of a sudden what was quiet seemed loud in its intensity. He suspended time.''
Mr. El Din, who created music for "The Black Stallion" and other films, first played with the Dead in '78 at Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza and joined the band a few months later at San Francisco's Winterland with a group of Sufi drummers. He was a serenely joyous man whose glowing black face was framed by his flowing white garb and headdress.
"He was sweet, gentle soul,'' said Hart, who recalled that night at Winterland when Mr. El Din had the whole crowd clapping the 12-beat rhythm of the Nubian number "Olin Arageed.'' "If you took the time to visit his sonic universe, he'd welcome you with open arms. It was a joyous experience. Jerry (Garcia) just loved to play with him.''
So did Joan Jeanrenaud, the cellist who first met Mr. El Din in the 1980s when she was a member of the Kronos Quartet. It was in Tokyo, where he was living and teaching at the time. He played his signature composition "Escalay: The Water Wheel'' for the group. "It was a heart-touching experience,'' said Jeanrenaud, who played with Mr. El Din many times, as a member of Kronos -- which featured "Escalay'' on its hit 1992 recording "Pieces of Africa'' -- on Mr. El Din's discs and on her own.
"He put himself into the music so completely that when he played, it would take you away to another place. You went on a journey to this very peaceful, emotional, beautiful place. He was a mentor to many of us.''
Born in Toskha, Nubia, in Egypt, Mr. El Din began playing oud while studying engineering at the University of Cairo. He also studied at the King Fouad Institute of Middle Eastern Music. Learning of plans to build the Aswan Dam, he quit his engineering job in Cairo and set off to preserve Nubian music before the people were dispersed. With his oud, an instrument unknown in Nubia, he traveled from village to village by donkey, gathering songs. He was playing in traditional Arabic style; it wasn't until his music acquired a distinctly Nubian flavor that it caught on.
"One day I felt the oud had a Nubian accent,'' Mr. El Din told The Chronicle in 1995. "I played for people in my village and they were mesmerized. I knew I had something.''
He had studied Western music at the Academy of Santa Celia in Rome, expanding his sense of harmony and musical form. After moving to the United States, he taught at various universities and then settled in the Bay Area. At Mills College, he met the esteemed composer Terry Riley, who learned something about understatement from a comment Mr. El Din made to him about singing softly.
"Through very simple means, Hamza could create a spell on an audience. His music spoke directly to the heart,'' said Riley, whose groundbreaking minimalist music has some of the same hypnotic quality. "Audiences leaned in toward his music," he said. "It wasn't in their faces.''
Riley introduced Mr. El Din to Kronos. "He opened doors for a lot of people, doors between different forms of music,'' said Kronos violinist and founder David Harrington. "We lost a great musician and a great man.''
Mr. El Din is survived by his wife, Nabra, of Oakland. A musical tribute is pending.
Jesse Hamlin, SF Chronicle - Friday, May 26, 2006
