For the love of art

As a child, Nada Al Aradi was very much influenced by many artists in her mother’s side of the family AlArrayedh .

An undergraduate in Interior Design, she did not allow anything in the way of pursuing her dream. 

She worked in various fields related to art. She taught art in Naseem School and also worked in the Culture Ministry for two years as an event coordinator. 

In 2012, Nada Al Aradi co-founded an art group with Tamadher Mohamed, named Ulafa’a and they co-curated 3 exhibitions.  She is currently in the process of finishing off a year long project with Ulafa’a on Instagram.

 She is currently doing her second year Masters in Fine Arts degree programme for Curatorial Practice at the Maryland Institute College of Arts in Baltimore, Maryland of the United States after receiving a Fulbright Graduate in 2014.  She also curates some exhibitions for college as part of the curriculum and is currently working on her thesis show, titled ‘not really here’, which will open in April.

#Ulafaachapters: Dear you 

In the past year, the Ulafa’a initiative created an online platform exhibition titled ‘#Ulafaachapters where different members of the group would take charge of their Instagram account to post a series for a month. 

Nada collaborated with her dear friend Zahraa Alezzi to create poetic multilingual spoken word series called ‘Dear you’. 

Nada said, “Zahraa and I have many similar interests that enlighten our conversations, and our taste in poetry and literature. We have talked about working on a spoken word poetry piece together long back and this project was a great opportunity to finally collaborate.” 

She added, “This project is a series of 15 seconds spoken word poetry posts. She speaks in Arabic and I in English. The format we created was that each post would be in a letterform, and begins with dear you, or in Arabic ilyaki inti. Zahraa’s posts and mine speak to one another to tell the story of two people’s experiences of being separated from one another over the course a year. Each dual post represents a season of change.”

She added, “Of all my achievements I am most proud of Ulafa’a. I feel that even as a small group of artists in their 20s, they really did make a shift in the art scene in Bahrain.”

Her writing experience

Nada is used to showing her paintings, but writing has been a practice that is usually personal. “Writing is a difficult medium. Words can sometimes work with you or fight against you. I still feel like I am practicing and learning how to control, and experiment with syntax, metaphors and vocabulary,” Nada said. When asked about her passion for writing, she said, “I started writing poetry in high school. It was something I did without much thought. It was just another channel to express emotion. I became more interested in the performance aspect when I first saw Sarah Kay perform a piece on a TED talk. It makes more sense to me to write poetry that doesn’t necessarily have to rhyme, but plays on words and delivers strong emotion” “If you stop listening to urge to write when it hits you, then the urge will stop appearing. Inspiration is something you need to let consistently flow, a break in that flow will make it hard to get back to writing when you want to. So keep writing, even if it seems like it’s not that good, and share it with people who you value their feedback.” For now, Nada is determined to focus on her studies and keep practicing many aspects of art as much as possible. She hopes that she will be able to promote exhibitions for other artists in the near future.