"Start at the beginning.." said the Mad Hatter to Alice...

The following work could be considered very typical of me as a Dubai gal. Coming from a Bedouin Arab heritage, I’m one of the first people you’d expect to jump on the heavily ridden heritage art wagon here in the U.A.E (even though local artists are not the only ones on that ever beaten path).

So when does this stuff get old? Well it already is, literally… Joke. ☺

I’ve steered away almost completely my entire (short) design student life from doing what I had considered stereotypical of the region’s creative community, I even rebelled with a Swiss design phase (or what was close enough). But once upon a time in my sophomore year, I decided to get the local out of my system and the following photo series was born. This was a final in my Photography Basics course, labeled Heritage Stills; a recreation of typical traditional settings from dated life in the Emirates. The grainy quality of film helped with its past like quality (I’m hoping you wouldn’t know they’d been shot in the metropolis that is Dubai, 2005), and a special thanks to the Dubai Heritage Village for providing the actors and settings used.

Traditional Dagger Carved In Stone

Old Woman in typical yard setting

Blacksmith in his Workshop - anonymity in this photo and the previous one is intentional to keep the characters iconic heritage figures from the past; almost ghostly even.

Food covers hanging on a wall - both the wall and the covers are made fully from Palm Trees and their derivatives.

Inside a typical Storage RoomFirewood for cooking and making coffee, set close to camp. Typical setting of a wandering Bedouin nomad.

Portrait of an Old Man

Still shot of a man reaching for the ‘finyan’ or small coffee cup. The bowl close by is filled with water and used to dispense of used cups immediately, avoiding stains.

Composition 1

Composition 2