How many of us have travelled in total silence on a ‘battheli’ (traditional wooden vessel with sail)?

How many of us have seen a ‘jifuti’ (cottage built from coral bricks and limestone with coconut palm thatch for roofs)?

How many of us remember that the mosque well was once the only pure source of drinking water for an island community?

Or had that creepy feeling every time we passed under the frangipani trees in a graveyard?

Egan Badeeu’s art exhibition, that opens next Sunday at the National Art Gallery, evokes a time and innocence that is now lost. It provoked a longing in me to return to that era when life was simple and one with nature.

Egan’s exhibition, titled “Theyo kula in Dhivehi Raajje” (which translates into ‘Maldives in oil color on canvas’) revives that time, about 20 to 30 years ago, when we picked fresh taro from our marshlands, gutted fish on the beach, and mingled with the sexes to work ourselves into a frenzy from the community dance ‘bodu beru’.

It is heartening to know that the government now actually pays for artists to create works! What better way than to revive our heritage and culture which had been dormant for 30 years when creativity was bottled in censorship?

Egan, who maintains his livelihood from art, was commissioned by the National Art Gallery to produce art for this exhibition. It follows a policy of the government to promote art and artists as an important reflection and introspection on society.

It would take Egan 18 months to produce 18 masterpieces, 9 of which are already ‘sold’ for private collectors, but which nevertheless will be on display for this exhibition.

The official launching is to be held at a ceremony tomorrow night at 8:30pm at the Gallery which is for invitees only. The exhibition will be open to the public from 10:00am on Sunday and will run for 4 weeks.

reviewed by Hilath Rasheed, www.hilath.com Photo by Hilath Rasheed, 2009