Last week, a colleague and I, and five of our graphic design students, traveled to Ibri to take part in the 2nd Annual International Design Conference and Exhibition at the Ibri College of Applied Sciences, Sultanate of Oman from May 1st - May 3rd, 2010.
The paper that we presented was based on a collaborative project that my colleague and I created for a curated art exhibit at the Evanston Art Center in Illinois. The five students that traveled with us all had helped with the research and process of our project. The students also gave presentations at the conference on their graphic design class projects.
As you can see from my photos, Oman is quite different from Kuwait and the other Gulf countries that I have visited. It is a mountainous country with much more greenery. Every town that we visited - Nizwa, Bahla' and Ibri - all had old and crumbling fortresses, some going back to the 13th century. The students in Oman also have a much stricter dress code; the males all in white dishdashas and unique traditional hats, the females all in black (and all ran away when I tried to take any photos). Much more than in other Gulf countries, ordinary people also wore traditional Arabic clothing, although often more colorful and varied than the students'.
It was a wonderful experience, despite having too rushed of a schedule, and I can't wait for another opportunity to visit!
...when I mention that I am traveling to Oman, every Arab person tells me to be careful since Oman is filled with magic - jinn that can walk in the air and turn into animals... Nizwa and Bahla, that we just drove through tonight to get here to Ibri, are supposedly the center of this magic...
...if you look carefully at my second photo that I shot of one of the mosques in Nizwa, you see strange colorful lights flying around... at first I thought they were street lights but, no, you can see a street light or two, but they are closer to the ground... (theme music to the X-files plays here)
...if you look carefully at my last photo, you can see that the toilet in my Oman hotel room has no seat as well as no toilet paper... I guess they do things different here... (theme music to the X-files plays here) (also, this was not just like this in my room but also my colleague's room and all of the student rooms...)
...below is link to a pretty interesting story from a recent traveler that catches some of the mystery and flavor of Oman. Enjoy!
Oman: The Jinn Of Nizwa Souk
Last week, a colleague and I, and five of our graphic design students, traveled to Ibri to take part in the 2nd Annual International Design Conference and Exhibition at the Ibri College of Applied Sciences, Sultanate of Oman from May 1st - May 3rd, 2010.
