After driving a sunny morning through the dusty, traffic-jammed roads of Khartoum for the usual 45 minutes to any place “nearby”, we arrived at what appears to be an oasis of calm and serenity, the Rashid Diab Arts Center. As it says on its website, "the RDAC stands as a strong and strikingly beautiful Sudanese building. In the design of the Centre, Rashid Diab celebrates the artisan tradition of the rural landscape that has been a central motif in his paintings. We notice the characteristic domes and arches, the rooms within rooms often found in Sudanese villages along the Nile."
One of Sudan’s most celebrated painters, the founder and owner of this center, Mr. Diab himself, greeted our little group after we had spent some minutes strolling around wondering about this remarkable artist village. He was a very busy man, he indicated to us after giving a perfunctory five-minute introduction to his center, dashing off with his mobile phone stuck to his ear just thereafter. Given no opportunity to ask questions at this point, we wandered around with wondrous eyes through the various artists’ apartments which a kind lady opened for us, one at a time, making sure we saw every corner of the center. The architecture was inspired by traditional Nubian style, as Mr. Diab had remarked; in fact, it was a mix of traditional and modern in the very same way as is found in many tourist resorts around the world aiming to give Westerners an “authentic”, yet not too dislocating or uncomfortable environment in which to enjoy the local culture. Airy rooms with high ceilings and beige walls, colourful textiles and of course a lot of Sudanese contemporary art, including that of the said owner and artist Rashid Diab, were the main features of the place.
At its core, the Rashid Diab Arts Center has an art gallery in which Sudanese art and that of international guest artists is exhibited. At the time of our visit an artist from Addis Abeba was showing his work, which Bassam el Baroni would probably categorize as “fine art” (see http://www.artterritories.net/?page_id=2063), as most of the work we saw at the center and in Sudan in general. There was also a souvenir shop at the center selling modern Sudanese paintings or "authentic business gifts" (according to the website, and at not so moderate prices), and finally, a beautiful, spacious garden which we imagined to be a perfect setting for the Oslo academy’s Open Forum – see current Open Forum programmers Hanan Benammar and Tiago Bom greeting the potential audience from the stage.
In the garden, Mr. Diab joined us again for a little chat in which he mainly spoke about his many years as professor in Madrid. Later that evening, we met again at the residence of the Norwegian Ambassador who was most kindly offering a reception in our honour. It became clear that Rashid Diab is a cosmopolitan man with strong ties to the expatriate elite in Khartoum – as well as a very successful business man (in which fields exactly was not quite clear). But first and foremost, as he says, he is an artist whose colourful paintings we found adorning many a wall in restaurants and residencies in Khartoum.
One of Sudan’s most celebrated painters, the founder and owner of this center, Mr. Diab himself, greeted our little group after we had spent some minutes strolling around wondering about this remarkable artist village. He was a very busy man, he indicated to us after giving a perfunctory five-minute introduction to his center, dashing off with his mobile phone stuck to his ear just thereafter. Given no opportunity to ask questions at this point, we wandered around with wondrous eyes through the various artists’ apartments which a kind lady opened for us, one at a time, making sure we saw every corner of the center. The architecture was inspired by traditional Nubian style, as Mr. Diab had remarked; in fact, it was a mix of traditional and modern in the very same way as is found in many tourist resorts around the world aiming to give Westerners an “authentic”, yet not too dislocating or uncomfortable environment in which to enjoy the local culture. Airy rooms with high ceilings and beige walls, colourful textiles and of course a lot of Sudanese contemporary art, including that of the said owner and artist Rashid Diab, were the main features of the place.
At its core, the Rashid Diab Arts Center has an art gallery in which Sudanese art and that of international guest artists is exhibited. At the time of our visit an artist from Addis Abeba was showing his work, which Bassam el Baroni would probably categorize as “fine art” (see http://www.artterritories.net/?page_id=2063), as most of the work we saw at the center and in Sudan in general. There was also a souvenir shop at the center selling modern Sudanese paintings or "authentic business gifts" (according to the website, and at not so moderate prices), and finally, a beautiful, spacious garden which we imagined to be a perfect setting for the Oslo academy’s Open Forum – see current Open Forum programmers Hanan Benammar and Tiago Bom greeting the potential audience from the stage.
In the garden, Mr. Diab joined us again for a little chat in which he mainly spoke about his many years as professor in Madrid. Later that evening, we met again at the residence of the Norwegian Ambassador who was most kindly offering a reception in our honour. It became clear that Rashid Diab is a cosmopolitan man with strong ties to the expatriate elite in Khartoum – as well as a very successful business man (in which fields exactly was not quite clear). But first and foremost, as he says, he is an artist whose colourful paintings we found adorning many a wall in restaurants and residencies in Khartoum.
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