#Bahrain is my birthday weekend so please please please be a good weekend

[chaossurvives]

Feeling pretty delulu about this f1 season. I’m expecting poles and wins and podiums.

[sindibadass]

Back with Two Twenties.

I’m back, folks. I’ve sort of missed two months of writing because well I was facing a writers block. I am finding it hard to write this one too actually - but I didn’t want to disappoint Virginia (Fujairah Observers Editor) so here goes! 

I think I’ve been having a writers block because I feel like I have a lot of thoughts and things going on inside my head, and I’ve been finding it difficult to declutter. So what I did was; I sat down on my desk, took a pen and paper, and wrote down all the to-dos I had to get done, all the pending stuff that I need to follow up on, and new goals for 2020. It wasn’t that hard. I managed to get through all of it within an hour, without any distractions. 

So let me tell you about the highlights of the last two months, I’m sure you missed me. 

On October, I went on this benchmarking trip to London. I was there with the Government Accelerators team I was leading in order to find out about the policies and regulations on employing people with determination. Surely by now you must have heard of the term People of Determination in the UAE - it is a term used for people with disabilities. The funny thing is that when we were over there, I was boasting about this term saying “Did you know that in my country, we call people with disabilities, “People of Determination”?” - and the answer I get is “But why?”. And my reply is always “It’s a form of motivation,”, and they reply with “But are you saying that determined people can only be people who have disabilities?” And I’m like... “Check please ok thanks bye!”. Okay I don’t really do that I’m not that rude, but 10/10 of people outside the UAE thought the same and that they “Didn’t like it as a definition.” 

I mean I do see their point, this term sort of boxes anyone with a disability, and surely nobody would like to be boxed into something. I get it. Just like how I don’t like being called fat. Get me? 

Here is a picture of my team and I with one of the benchmarking entities we had visited: 

I also introduced the team to my Dad who was there on a separate business, and he bought us lunch at an Iranian Restaurant Abadanna. We made sure we ordered everything there was on the menu. 

Then on November, I went on this UN Women Empowerment Program in Vienna, and I have to say that I had a pretty splendid time, and I loved every bit of it. There were 20 fully funded women from the GCC that were selected to go on this program, I got to make friends with women from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman. They were all pretty awesome, like-minded individuals who are on a journey to become global citizens of change. 

During the trip, a bunch of us went to Budapest for the weekend, and I cooked Karak with the help of Nada telling me that I was doing it wrong. She was right, the Karak tasted like expired water mixed with cement. But hey - it’s the thought that counts right? I kind of forced them to drink it because it was a waste of water and milk and tea and cardamom. 

Here’s the girls and I on our graduation day. 

I learned a lot from this program, it truly was something I was happy to be a part of, the workshops held at the Diplomatic Academy of Wein were excellent, and I’ve even started having workshops myself on sharing the knowledge I had acquired at my own workplace. So if y’all need some change-making guru, you know who to call (actually I prefer you send a DM on @Sindiyay, I’m too important now I don’t answer calls unless it’s from Aramex).

Now we come to December, of course, the best month of the year (I’m sure you know by now that December 22nd is my birthday and I accept all kinds of gifts, except for flowers; I don’t know what to do with them. This year I celebrated multiple times, I’m blessed to see so many good people around me that I can share this day with. Fujtown also celebrated a day early (or maybe they just forgot which day it was) - here’s a snap of it: 

As you can see I ate all of that cake and left some for the rest. It’s my birthday I can do whatever I want. 

I feel quite accomplished in 2019 Alhamdulillah, and I am aiming higher for 2020 - It’s going to be the best year, full of opportunities, love, peacefulness, and happiness, InshAllah. 

It’s also DubaiExpo2020 this year, commencing on October, I can already feel the excitement among people - what a great win for the country. 

My New Year resolution is all about decluttering; Decluttering things, unwanted energies around me, and most importantly, I’m decluttering people that do not add anything to my life. Let me put it this way: if someone does not add value to you or your wellbeing, you don’t need them in your life. This is how I’m declaring how I’ll be playing it in 2020.

I’ve done my New Year Resolutions, have you? Are you willing to actually accomplish them this year? If I dare you and you lose, you have to buy me lunch from Magic Flakes Cafe. 

And last but not least, congratulations on Trumps Impeachment. It was about time.

Until next time, Fajrawis! 

Sindiya, The Sign. 

[malyousif]

I consider my photography exhibition currently at Mashq Art Space entitled A Global Perspective as my first “real” exhibition and I’m happy with the impact it has had and the number of visitors who have dropped in and the valuable feedback and comments I’ve received from them. I highly value their opinions.

I’m not discounting the smaller exhibition I have held at More Words Pop-up Shop. Not at all. In fact, it was an excellent experience regardless of the number of people who actually visited. Seeing my photographs displayed on their wall was a good feeling of success. I would not hesitate to exhibit there again.

The best part of having an exhibition of my work is of course meeting a variety of people and having the opportunity to listen to them comment and even critique my work. I have been taking pictures since I was six, and apart from the customer virtual venues of my websites and the various other photography platforms I have tried over the years, I have never exhibited my work. This has now changed and I’m already thinking of future themes and pictures I can exhibit at physical venues. I didn’t expect it to be this much fun!

I dedicate both of these exhibitions to the memory of my late father, the great Bahraini pioneering artist Nasser Al-Yousif, who nurtured my talent and supported me in every way he could.

My interest in photography all started when I asked my father how was a photograph made. That was when I was six or seven years old I think. He explained it simplistically to me by saying that you put something called a negative on paper, then shine a light on it and the positive picture will come out on the paper.

Little did he know that I discussed this with my cousin Mohammed and I found one of dad’s negatives, got a piece of paper and we both sat on the stairs in our old home in the sun, exposing the negative and the paper to the sun. We sat there for ages and kept checking the paper for any hint of a picture developing. We even convinced ourselves that it was working! I can’t remember whether dad saw us sitting there on the stair in the sun when he came back home from work – he was a teacher at that time – or that I had gone to him with the negative and paper complaining that we sat there all day and nothing happened. But that experience resulted in my dad buying me my first camera.

And that’s how my passion for photography started.

A few years later, he even built me a dark room in a corner of his studio and bought me the projector and the chemicals so I started developing my own films. Photography has been part of me since then.

I kept my photography to myself until I got to high school where I suggested to the principal Mr Alsammak that I could start a photography club at the school – partly to get away from the hated physical education class which I felt was a waste of time! – and he agreed. He asked me what I needed and I gave him a list of equipment which he got supplied through the Ministry of Education and provided us with a room that we converted into a working darkroom. I got a few fellow students interested and that’s how the first photography club in a Bahraini school started.

I continued taking pictures and I think we exhibited some of our work at school functions and even participated in international competitions which we got to know about through photography magazines.

At university in Scotland, photography was an entrenched passion. The beauty of Scotland provided all the necessary inspiration to continue to take photographs at every opportunity I had. I constantly travelled all over Scotland with the goal of taking more pictures. I used to look forward to weekends so that I can go visit a loch or a farm or just a village or city to take pictures. I loved that time and have thousands of slides to prove it.

Once I retuned home after university I continued to practice photography and participated in the first photography exhibition by the Bahrain Art Society and one of my photographs won second place, and another won a consolation prize. I remember that my winning picture called Red Street – a long exposure of the in-construction highway going to Saudi. The long exposure and the street lights combined to provide a halo of red which was beautiful and etherial. That photograph was purchased by Shaikh Rashid Alkhalifa, and it was the very first picture I have ever sold. The consolation prize was a picture of the Bahrain Fort at Moonrise and it is actually exhibited now at the current exhibition. I love the purple hue of the picture and its a good documentary picture of how the fort used to be before it was renovated.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to exhibit again. This too was a chance encounter. I was visiting my brother Jamal’s (whose birthday is tomorrow, happy birthday bro!) excellent exhibition at Mashq Art Space when its owner artist and calligrapher Ali Albazzaz approached me to have a chat. I suggested that I would like to see my work exhibited at his space, half jokingly at the time. He responded by saying that he has a slot in April and for me to send him a portfolio to have a look at. I sent him a portfolio I created earlier and he accepted to provide me an exhibition slot.

I was thrilled. I was going to have my first photography exhibition!

Unfortunately he informed me later that the slot was no longer available. So as I had my portfolio ready, and at the encouragement of my wife, I sent it to Words which they accepted immediately, and I met with them to make the arrangements and agree on the other parameters.

I proceeded to print my portfolio and got the photographs framed in time for the exhibition at More Words which took place from 11 – 14 April 2018. As I was making the final arrangements, I got another call from Ali who informed me that the slot at Mashq was available again if I wanted it. That put me in a quandary. I had already committed to Words and I knew that if I accept Mashq’s slot – which is from 15 – 23 April – it will confuse people who might like to visit, and will also present a challenge for advertising both!

Me being me, I didn’t want to squander the opportunity and accepted both. I threw myself at the job of printing a bigger selection for Mashq as the space is quite larger than Words, and ran around ensuring that everything was taken care of.

I’m glad with how everything worked out in the end. Both experiences were valuable and both have now prepared me for future exhibitions which I am determined to do.

If you have a chance, please drop by Mashq until 23 April. I normally am there from around 7pm having their excellent chai karak and meeting with fellow photographers, artists and guests.

They will also be screening my film Triumph of Insight tomorrow night (18.4.18) at 8.30pm which will be followed by a question and answer session with me.

A Global Perspective Photography Exhibition I consider my photography exhibition currently at Mashq Art Space entitled A Global Perspective as my first "real" exhibition and I'm happy with the impact it has had and the number of visitors who have dropped in and the valuable feedback and comments I've received from them.