OMAN: Young artists uncover the biggest mosaic painting in the Middle East made of approximately one million pieces of mosaic tiles

Record ID: 860239

  • Title: OMAN: Young artists uncover the biggest mosaic painting in the Middle East made of approximately one million pieces of mosaic tiles
  • Date: 6th May 2009
  • Summary: MUSCAT, OMAN (MAY 4, 2009) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SCREENING OF VIDEO SHOWING GROUP ASSEMBLING MOSAIC
  • Embargoed: 21st May 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Oman
  • City:
  • Country: Oman
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA3PCVS33FTE7QFS3HHKTT90NK0
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  • Story Text: Some 140 Omani students of the Mohammed Bin Shaikhan School in Muscat participated in the design and creation of a mosaic arts picture entitled 'Oman Past and Present', the first of its kind in the Middle East.
    Shaker Nasser Al-Hadrami, a teacher at the Mohammed Bin Shaikhan School, said that the ambitious project was a joint effort between teachers and students.

    "Of course this picture is a great achievement for our school and for the Sultanate's schools in general. The students made this picture in cooperation with their teachers. It consists of ceramic parts, wood and glue," he said.
    The piece took the students five months to complete, a record time considering the size of the piece.
    At 18.23 meter long and 2.44 meters high, the mosaic consists of approximately one million pieces of small ceramic tiles and narrates the various stages of the renaissance era in the Sultanate of Oman since 1970.
    The initial idea was to create a piece of art that was six meters long.
    This soon developed to 18.23 meters made up of 19 wooden parts. Students participating in the project faced a number of difficulties, including a lack of necessary materials needed for the completion of the picture as well as having to keep up with their studies.
    Student Marwan Khalfan Al-Degheishi said that the students took it in turns to work on the mosaic once they had been divided into groups.

    "The students were divided into groups. We used to come during intervals to work in the project, and then other group comes in to complete the remaining parts," he said.
    A representative of the project sponsor, Labib Hamad al-Ma'wali, said their role was purely a supportive one throughout the project.

    "Our role in this respect is to support good work and efforts, which we are proud of. We encourage the talented students in order to enable them to highlight everything that is beautiful, vivid and interesting. Our role was to provide financial support in the first place and moral support through gifts which we gave to students at all levels," he said.
    According to organisers, the main aims of the project were three-fold: to provide students with a greater understanding in the different artistic concepts, improve team-working skills amongst the students and finally, to instil in them the spirit nationalism and how to hold one's heritage dear.
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