Selected Cultural Posts
Cultural Posts to Dip into over the Holiday Season
Above, aluminium coffee pots glinting in the summer sun, Soug al-Arabi, Khartoum.
If the Sudanese contemporary art scene is your thing, then take a look at Going Downtown, featuring the exciting new Khartoum art gallery, Downtown, and its dynamic founder, Abdelrahiem Shaddad. Working Hands is a photographic tribute to the quiet dignity of the working men and women of Khartoum I was privileged to meet during my stay in the capital earlier this year.
If you are interested in the complex aromatic heritage of Sudan, then don’t miss Karkar, Dilka and Dukhan, exploring the fascinating story behind Sudan’s signature perfumed pastes, rubs and body smoking rituals.
The Old Tambur Player Rana Jubara is the first of two posts dedicated to the remarkably talented young Qatar-based Sudanese graphic designer, photographer and artist, Rana Jubara.
Rana Jubara’s stunning Sudanese take on Picasso; The Old Tambur Player.
Alternatively, why not join acclaimed Sudanese writer, Leila Aboulela as she revisits the London scenes so pivotal to Tayeb Salih’s masterpiece, Season of Migration to the North with Penguin Books “On the Road” podcast in the company of Henry Eliot in The Train carried me to Victoria Station…
The Gadah, pictured above, is much more than just a wooden bowl. Learn more about this Sudanese vessel, laden with legends and folklore. Kamala Ishag returned to London this autumn in this historic retrospective of her work at the Serpentine Galleries. See examples of her unsettling, graceful and moving work in Kamala Ishag – A Homecoming.
Above, Kamala Ishag’s Bait al-Mal, exhibited in Kamala Ishag; States of Oneness at The Serpentine Galleries, London.
Get a taste of Sudanese folklore in the beautiful short folktale Hassan and the Fishes.
In ancient times, there was a man by the name of Hassan. He was a fisherman. Every morning he went fishing, taking with him his fish-hook and net. Then he brought the fish back to sell in the market. Now fishing made him rich, and he lived happily with his sons at home.
K.Eltinaé is a Sudanese literary polymath based in southern Spain. His latest collection, The Moral Judgement of Butterflies was published this summer. Learn more about this gifted linguist, writer, translator and lecturer in Light Distilled
Giving Form to Clay 3 – Short Film, one of a series of posts on Sudan’s ceramic heritage, documents the traditional techniques still used in pottery making today in northern Sudan. The late, great London-based Sudanese ceramicist, Mo Abbaro, is honoured in “How Earth Works” , featuring the short film dedicated to the artist by film maker and photographer, Frédérique Cifuentes.
Above, a still from The Pots Project short film, featured in Giving Form to Clay 3 – Short Film
The spinning and weaving of cotton has long been central to women’s lives in rural Sudan. Read the intimate and moving testimonies of Sudanese women spinners and weavers under colonial rule, as recorded by the remarkable British archeologist, textile historian and midwife, Grace Crowfoot in The Thread of Fate and Cowrie Shells.
Above, Grace Crowfoot’s illustrations of Sudanese embroidery patterns, many of which have tantalizing names.
Below, one of Mo Abbaro’s pieces, exhibited at The Fitzwillian Museum, Cambridge.
Catch up on more cultural posts in A Taste of a Sudanese Summer 2022
This blog is dedicated to the work of Women’s Education Partnership in furthering women’s literacy in Sudan. Learn more about our life-changing work in International Literacy Day 2022,
and our literacy Celebration Highlights
Below, highlights from our International Literacy Day celebrations last month.
Learn more about our women’s literacy, orphans schooling and university scholarship projects programmes below:
Opening Doors – Our Women’s Literacy Programme
Our University Scholarships – giving bright young women the chance to go to university
Scenes from Our Orphans’ Schooling Programme and From Hardship to Hope Our Orphans Schooling Programme
Women's literacy in Sudan 