The Nile flows through the northern Sudanese desert. As dry and inhospitable the land, so lush is the strip along the river: a broad green lint with groves of date palms, where limes and grapefruit grow, sorghum and vegetables, and where little goats and cows graze. In this land the Nubians live, who settled here from before the era of the pharaohs, behind the cataracts that protected them against invaders from the north. Still they speak their own language, build their typical, low open houses made out of sun-dried clay, and move about on donkeys along pharaonic and Christian edifices, pyramids, temples, fortresses, churches and monasteries that have remained as witnesses of an at times turbulent history, in which the Nile and the Nubians were a given.
Ars Nubiae focuses on modern, figurative art made by contemporary professional artists from this region. Present-day Sudan has a lively art scene of young and arrived artists; the most famous of these is Kamala Ibrahim Ishag (Khartoum College of Fine Arts), who won the 2019 Prince Claus award.
Ars Nubiae showcases pieces by arrived and starting artists. We kick off in 2021 with a vernissage of paintings and drawings by Seif ed Din Laota (that will be held online because of corona distancing measures).
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