a visual journal of maldives

Ablow Arif, untitled, digital painting, circa 2000

Ablow Arif, untitled, Pen on Paper, dimensions unknown, circa 2000

Ablow Arif, untitled, digital painting made with Painter, circa 2000, dimensions unknown

Mariyam Omar, untitled 7, 34″ 26″, acrylic and oil pastel, 2005

Blindspot 1 by Mariyam Omar

Mariyam Omar is a trianed graphic designer who has been working in Male’ for some years now. She also produces abstract imagery, sometimes using non-conventional media like coffee and shaving foam.

This is a screen shot of one of the pages of the National Art Gallery website, inaugurated in October 2005. This could be a very positive step in institutionalising the visual arts in the country. I am also employed at the gallery since July 2004.

You can view the site at www.artgallery.gov.mv The site was designed by Shahee Ilyas for Bolhe (www.bolhe.com)

An A2 poster promoting the Common Goods exhibition and residency program will be available from Craft Victoria and the Melbourne Museum from 6 February 2006. The poster features a photograph of coir fibre from Maldives taken by Kevin Murray, Director of Craft Victoria during his visit to the Maldives in 2005 to look for a possible participant in the programme.

Maldivian craftsman Ahmed Nimad is currently in Melbourne Australia taking part in Common Goods: Cultures Meet Through Craft. The program is organised by Melbourne based Craft Victoria and is a residency program, exhibition and publication. Comongoods will also coincide with the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

More info at: http://www.craftvic.asn.au/commongoods/index.htm

Mamduh Waheed, Tropical Junkie Part 1 (work in progress), 20cm x 30cm acrylic on paper, 2006

Photo: MW, 2006

Mamduh Waheed, Cuttle Fish, Pen on Paper, 15 x 20 cm, 2004

Maizan Adam Maniku, The Beginning, Pastel on Paper, 10 x 14 inches, circa 1994

These images made by Maizan Adam Maniku are some of the very rare of its kind that can be found in the Maldives by an individual of Adam Maniku’s generation. Of course there are others of his generation who have produced abstract imagery using western techniques and vocabularies. But I find his work containing an intensely personal quality which I have come across in very few other works except for in artists of a much later time. In this sense he was quite ahead of his time in his vision. And with hindsight, this is very clearly manifest in the thinking behind his pioneering cultural projects to counter the negative consequences of globalisation on the indeginous ways of life in the Maldives, especially on Maldivian crafts traditions. As far as I know, Adam Maniku is the only individual, and the organisation he found the only of its kind in the country that is making attempts to address issues of identity that has come about in the wake of globalisation.

MW Photos by Maizan Adam Maniku (Images copyright Maizan Adam Maniku)

Maizan Adam Maniku, Spiral Connection, Pastel on Paper, 10 x 14 inches, circa 1994

Maizan Adam Maniku, Gossip, Pen on Paper, 8 x 5 inches, circa 1994

Maizan Adam Maniku, Water World, Pastel on Paper, 10 x 14 inches, circa 1994

Adam Maniku has sustained a strong interest in the arts throughout his life. Although formally trained as an economist, and given the fact that he spent nearly 3 decades working in the not particularly creative environment of the Maldives Finance Ministry (including several years as the Deputy Minister), Adam Maniku is perhaps equally well-known,if not more, for his creative work. Most recently he has established Creative Arts and Crafts Training Centre (CACTC) in the Maldives. The centre trains Maldivian youth in the fast disappearing traditions of Maldivian craft practices. (You can see some of their works here: www.creativitymaldives.org). CACTC also has a showroom in Male’ where products made by CACTC students are on display/sale. The showroom, Heritage, is on Boduthakurufaanu Magu, near Nasandhura Palace Hotel.

MW