House of Mirrors

On Saturday I went with a group of teachers to the House of Mirrors in Kuwait. This unusual art museum is a giant installation created by an Italian woman who slowly, over a series of years, transformed her home by constructing mirror mosaics to cover every surface. Lidia al-Qattan came to Kuwait for the dry weather. Married to a Kuwaiti artist, she began to create her own art in the form of mosaics. Inspired to cover up the mess that her daughter had left after she got into enamel paint, it soon spread from the one room throughout her home.  She said that it took 91 tonnes of mirror to create what we there saw today. 

Lidia, is an eccentric artist, but is very welcoming as she gives you snacks when you first arrive, and then takes you an a tour of them place. Her home revolves around the idea of the earth and the universe. All of the rooms have themes, from the reception room which is inspired by the sea, the kitchen which looks at the bounty of the earth, or her daughter's old bedroom which looks at astrology. She share with us her fascination of the origin of the universe, and space exploration. 

She took us upstairs where things got a little more "interactive" and delved more experiential art. Not my personal favourite type of art but never the less something as art educator I should always keep an open mind to. First came the game. Hanging from the walls and ceiling were cheap carpet that she had painted. She handed all of us on the tour small tiles which she had painted and on the back attached velcro to. We were to throw the tiles at the carpet and attempt to get the images facing right side up in order to score a point for out team. My team won 2 out of the 3 series. Next we were taken into the art therapy room, where a dark setting, light installations and music were meant to calm you and make you self aware. 

The next room we were taken into was our experience in entering into the universe. She had a dark room where glow in the dark stars surrounded us, and timed to music various lights and images played. You could tell that there was a lot of thought and dedication put into it. And although it wasn't my favourite art installation, after got over the feeling that this is really weird, I did enjoy it. To the point where when she open the door and told us it was time to move on, we all a little slow to leave. Although some of the participants may have been more hesitant to find out what odd art experience we were going to have next. 

She took us down an elevator to her gallery of painting were she made us spin a wheel of chance to see if we could win a prize of one of her jewellery designs. However some people did walk away with some large broaches and earrings. She took us back the reception room where she gave us more drinks and food, and talked about her art and life in Kuwait some more. She was a fascinating woman, but once again confirmed to me that I am no where weird enough to be an artist. 

Understanding 'Haraam' in Art

I'm one month into living in Kuwait, and finished two weeks of teaching here. In that time I've learn new things and had to adapt some of the ways I teach to better this new culture I'm now working with.

One of the new words I've learned is "Haraam" which in a loose translation means sinful. Basically it has to do with anything that goes against Islamic values. Most of them to an outsider make a lot of sense, things like not wasting food, or showing respect to the elders of your family. Somethings although foreign to westerners we're still familiar with like dressing conservatively.

As an art teacher I have a whole list of things that are haraam. My school follows closely Islamic values so, I end up with a larger haraam list than teachers at other international schools. I was already prepared for the no showing of nudes. And as an art teacher, especially working internationally you're already familiar with the sensitivity around nudes, what age is it appropriate to show them at, which students have religions or backgrounds that is may offend. So I was already prepare for the no naked people in art. Which maybe difficult, but still able to work around it. What I wasn't really prepare is the other things on the list. Which includes, but not limited to, displaying religious figures that appear in the Quran. Obviously I wouldn't be showing depictions of Mohammed, because that's against the rules, and there are basically no pictures of him because of this anyways. But other people like, God, Jesus, Moses, David, are all apart of the Quran. So there goes the renaissance. Which I will now teach about using the Mona Lisa.

We also have: art pieces that are political, are Israeli or jewish(sort of), art that talks about the Holocaust, depict Muslims doing bad things, show inappropriate relationships, display drinking or drug use, in any way encourage pigs to be seen as food.

So far I've shown them images of the Lascaux Caves, which in retrospect I'm really hoping that saying that there was humans 17,000 years ago is not against the Quran.... Needless to say as apart of this new adventure in my art teaching career I now need to find art resources that mostly talk about landscapes.

One Month In

Thursday night! 

Two weeks of teaching in Kuwait done, one month here. Its been a little bumpy, but things are starting to get settled. Mind you I did get a new schedule again today... Oh well I go paid today!

Happy Birthday to Me!

My birthday was on Friday, which here is the first day of the weekend. So today at the end of class my Grade 12 IB students surprised me with a giant birthday cookie, and sang happy birthday to me in both english and arabic. It was the perfect start to the week.

The Classroom

It took a while, put the classroom is now organized and somewhat working order.

Imagine this, I walk into my class to find boxes of things, shelves, tables, and chairs all just piled in the middle of the room. It took days to get things sorted and as of today the projector finally works!

Completed the first week of school with some success. I'm exhausted and covered in charcoal dust, but now starting to look forward to the year!

The New Place

By the time we had got through customs, got the bags and drove to the apartment it was around 10pm. I was brought to my place, was given a quick tour and left for the night. The place is small compared to what I was used to. Of course having your own house kinda spoils you. It was a small one bedroom apartment with a tiny kitchen, small bath, little living room and only one cupboard for the whole place. It was a bit of an adjustment. What a normal person would have done at 10 o'clock at night would have been got to bed and sleep. But I instead started to plan how to make this place better. And being true to my roots, I kept thinking "if I could only knock down that wall this place would be so much better!" Unfortunately building owners don't usually appreciate when you do those things,so now I just have to live with the awkward wall. I have developed several ideas on how to fix it, mostly which involves buying a lot of shelves from Ikea.

When it got a little later in the evening I opened up my bags, found what I needed, put sheets on the bed, and try to figure out the air conditioning. It was broken. So when its 42 degrees, this is awful. I didn't get much sleep. I drank a lot of water, took several showers which is when I discovered that the shower door was broken and didn't close. So I flooded my bathroom floor a bit. And just sweat a lot. At 5am the construction on the building next door started, I opened my curtains on the window to see what was going on. Thats when the curtains, rod and all came tumbling down off the wall. Turns out the bracket was broken. They now sit in a pile under the window still waiting for repair.

My place is like a ticking time bomb. I'm never sure what cupboard I'm going to open next and the door fall off. I've now been informed that my apartment used to be owned by a single guy who was a "disaster of a guy"(direct quote) so this is why my place is falling apart and smells like smoke and has questionable stains on most surfaces. We're currently working on these problems. The building manager and me are soon going to be best friends. On the plus side, another woman found what was clogging her drain was used condoms, so at least I didn't have that problem...yet. The joys of living in  single's housing, its like living in University res all over again. Haha

My bedroom. Here you can see the construction next door. My bed is in desperate need of a bed skirt. And I still have one suitcase of clothes that wouldn't fit. Ikea shelves to be put together soon (hopefully) to fix this problem. 

Here you have a view of my living/dinning area.

Here's the kitchen, and the Ikea shelves that have yet to be put together. 

Off To An Interesting Start

As per usual getting to Kuwait was far from easy. We arrived at the airport late, and the flight was over booked. So guess who didn't get on the plane. Me. 

My flight from Frankfurt to Kuwait was still good. I just needed to find away to get another flight that night to Frankfurt. Now I could have waited for an alternative flight in a couple of days and be late for work. Looking back, it wouldn't have been horrible. But showing up for a contract late and missing the first couple of days isn't ideal. So we looked, and called, and I was put on hold for a very long time and found a travel agent who told me and my mom (who was dropping me off) that if we run and change terminals we could possibly get on and Air Canada flight. The guy from Condor airlines I was on the phone with told me to try and get the flight and we can sort out payment after. So we ran through the airport with a trolley full of suitcase, at one point we went the wrong direction and had to double back. I got the check in counter sweaty and out of breath, explained the situation to a woman, she ushered us into the line only to eventually get to the counter to be told we were in the wrong place. So we ran across the terminal with less than an hour and half to the flight. We stood in another line and waited forever as the the ticketing agents seemed to not be doing anything at all. Minutes passed and tried not to panic. 

50 minutes from take off I was finally talking to a ticketing woman, she could get me on the flight for about three thousand dollars. Which is insane, she explained that one way tickets are very expensive to Europe. Well what about round trip tickets? It actually cost me $600 less to have a round trip. I'm not sure how that math works. Paid for my extra luggage, and then carted it to another counter ticket in hand. The woman who gave me my ticket warned me, you only have 5 minutes before that luggage won't make it on the plane. So I ran and got it there with 4 minutes left. Which the baggage lady didn't seem in a rush at all, which of course drove me insane. But she sent them off on their way. I was 95% I would not see them arrive in Kuwait. I then ran with Mom to security were there was the quickest good bye ever, rushed through, ran to my gate, just in time to be one of the last few to board the plane. I was on the flight. I was going to get to Frankfurt. 

When I landed in Frankfurt the fun wasn't over, there were terminal changes, than getting the boarding pass for my flight to Kuwait, then traveling in the complete opposite direction to get to my gate. I had twenty minutes to spare before boarding, which is when I met some of the other new teachers at my school. When we went to get on the plane, you had to go through this automated gate, which felt like a cattle call. Turns out they had scales in the floor. So when you rolled over it with your carry on it could tell if it was over weight. Note to self always carry luggage. So obviously mine was over weight, because thats how I pack. So after the flashing lights and beeping had subsided, a representative told me that my one carry on had to be checked. I was impressed, but he noted that it would be free of charge, so he took the bag, gave me a sticker tag and sent me down to the plane. There's another lost suitcase. I was pretty sure I was now going to show up in Kuwait and have only my laptop bag. 

Now here's the thing about carry ons, you put important things in them, like documents you need to get into a country. Of course I had my passport with me, but there was also a series of colourfully stamped pages that went along with my visa, which would let me into the country. So when I got to customs in Kuwait it hit me. I was short a very important piece of paper. So I explained it to the customs agent who looked at me like I was an idiot, and proceeded to be passed of to a series of customs officers as I was escorted to retrieve my bag from the carousel and then escorted back in order to officially enter the country. I picked up the rest of my bags- which all arrived!