Emirati and Korean artists at the Sharjah Guest of Honour pavilion at the 65th Seoul International Book Fair.

These events were designed to promote Sharjah’s overarching mission to promote cultural understanding and appreciation by offering a platform that can serve as an intellectual bridge, spark dialogue and joint artistic projects. At the core of this endeavour lay the exploration of aesthetic commonalities across diverse artistic domains, with a particular focus on illustration, calligraphy and photography. By encouraging contemplation and dialogue surrounding these art forms, the workshops sought to uncover shared artistic expressions while offering a fertile ground for creative exchange and sharing inspiration.

The workshops were organised by Sharjah Book Authority (SBA), which oversees the Sharjah Pavilion at the fair. Through these workshops, the entity sought to offer foreign artists a taste of the fast-growing creative movement in the UAE and the Arab region, as well as to open up opportunities for creators and artists from the UAE to enrich their knowledge of another country’s artistic scene while also exchanging their expertise with creators from South Korea.

Employing heritage arts, the ‘Printing Arts’ workshop brought together artists Khalid Mezaina and Ahn Kyong Mi, who presented vivid visual examples of the intersection of images, letters and words and discussed their role in shaping artistic works that employ calligraphy, collage and photography.

Researcher Ali Al-Abdan and artist Myong Jin highlighted the powerful impact of images and visual arts in Korea and the UAE, where letters, words and images converge to become marvelous works of art. During the ‘Drawing and Calligraphy’ session, they shared their experiences on employing heritage symbols to represent their local culture in drawing and artwork, and discussed how it has been inspiring the artist's journey of creativity, which is reflected by the various symbols that appear in their works.

WAM