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The Canberra Islamic centre was built
and continues to function
because of community support and donations
Fatima is an artist
who came to Australia from Morocco
the paintings that she has donated
adorn the centre's walls
People contribute with their time or money or whatever
they can afford to give
I could not afford money, so my work was there [at the CIC) and I would like the world to know about it
I want everone to know how beautiful Islamic art is
.... growing up ... all the
Islamic design, the writing and the patterns .... everything is all around you.
In fact when I went overseas I missed that,
that's why I kept wanting to paint mainly the Islamic designs and the patterns
and the writing and the colours.
My mum always encouraged me to do art, she always bought me paper and paint
Unfortunately she died when I was fourteen.
Everything I have done after, it was for her, more than,
more than myself in a way....Fatima met her
Australian husband in America and marriage
brought her to Canberra
I found it very isolating here
i think it's because of the geography of the place, wherever you are you are,
you are too far from everywhere ,
in a way
if you don't make an effort to meet other people
you stay in your own circle
and I think the Islamic center is doing a good job in joining many
communities from
Islamic backgrounds
but they are all from different backgrounds
so I think that's a very good
achievement
because you see lots of people from different backgrounds in ONE PLACE...............
For somebody like me where...English
is a bit of ......I didn't grow up thinking in english
art I find .... it's my language here
I find that I express myself much better....I call this piece...
"I will write I promise"... Its the thing you say when you leave your home,
when you leave your country.....
As you can see I have done
every piece in a postcard size
so it is all about writing back home and telling people
your experience here.....
so the writing and the cards...and the letters
start to pick up the influences from the Australian landscape.
The more I printed, the more I felt good
so this piece got bigger and bigger...the original idea was
going to be much smaller than this.
Most of my works carry this writing that I wrote as letters to my mum...although my mum is dead to me, by writing these letters
it was as if she is still there......
I left Morocco in
[nineteen] eighty-eight
so most of my work was about
staying in touch with my birthplace....
but later on
everything that's been happening politically
in the Muslim world
I hope to be the voice of my Arab-Muslim community.
..............Calligraphy as an element is just
a reminder of back home.....
but it was more
a fluid line that I use in the writing part of the composition
but now I want the writing to be read by somebody who can read arabic,
I want it to be like a newspaper headline.
sometimes...I feel very angry
I feel very angry and that's why I feel I am lucky to have art,
to have my paintings to be able to express my ideas,
to people who can see it. The recent war on Iraq
it's a good testament of what's been happening, the place has now been turned to
a cemetery.........................
I don't care any more whether Islamic art looks beautiful,
I know that for sure, but to me I need much
more, I need a message to come across....
I want the pieces to speak to the people and also to show the opinion
you don't usually see.
This is a recent work
.....I have done
about people in detention centres.
As you can see this pattern here
refers to the
fence
and the dog bowl
...because the shocking experience for me
to see how dogs are well treated. They are taken for walks every day.
If you go to the shopping centres there is a whole aisle just for dogs
for food and toys
and things for dogs... but how could you treat dogs that way
and still treat the human being in another way........
In Islam there is no difference between black or white,
or whether you have money or you don't
or whether you have
an education or you don't, the humanity is the most important in Islam
before anything else
and I recall an incident that personally happened to me one time,
I had just had my first baby
and walking through the shops I heard
this baby cry
and instantly you react
as a mother
about to sort of nurse the baby
and because then later on I realised that baby
could be from any country, from anywhere, from any faith, it didn't matter,
its that instant reaction I had that's the most important,
that was stronger than me.........
but it was a human reaction.......
that was was very inspiring for me so much.
In my opinion, most religions have the same goal, they are to achieve peace within the person
and peace of mind
and soul will spread around the world
and wouldn't that be a great place to live.....