- Artist Mohsen Keiany
Nechells Green Community Centre Arts Project Summary
Diversity can be celebrated by acknowledging the identity of individuals and communities in a positive way without any pre-judgement and referring to any social categories. As artist in residence based in Nechells Green Community Centre I offer arts activities which include a range of visual arts participatory opportunities such as painting, mosaic making and collage work. During the workshops participants meet new people interested in art and so gain increased confidence and communication skills and a sense of community identity, satisfaction, and strength.
This project is fun for everyone including families, adults and young people. It offers a series of art workshops such as watercolour, collage, mosaic making with an especial focus on Islamic art. The term of “identity” within the Islamic arts can be reflected in the use of Islamic patterns, tiles, ceramic and miniatures paintings. However we will also look at patterns and colours from stained glass windows in Christian Churches and patterns and colours from African arts as subject matter for the project.
As a key issue, this art project is seeking to engage the Muslim community and to value their traditional art as well as open up new avenues to art making as a means of increasing greater understanding and tolerance between community groups. In this case, I am particularly interested in respecting cultural and religious differences under the golden rule of “humanity to others” which can be found in any culture.
Participants from Nechells may come from established or newly arrived communities, but together with my input as a professional artist we will create some paintings and collages and collaborate together to create a large mosaic which will be displayed in a magnificent exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in April 2010.
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