Art is a pillar of Tanween’s offerings. Each year, Ithra’s Great Hall and the Center’s other components host interactive exhibitions that inspire and communicate creativity as part of Tanween’s offerings.
But how and why does art intrinsically fit within the creative realm? While often subjective, art is unequivocal expression. Across its many forms and styles, at its base it is an expression of creativity.
We’ve long considered art to be static in the form of a painting or a sculpture where the artist’s aesthetic is the only defining factor in any artwork. Audience engagement was only quantified in how long they observed the artwork and their reaction when it came to its color composition, scale, and their perception of what the artist had portrayed.
However, in interactive art, the artist and the audience are inextricably linked to the artwork. This connectivity embeds the audience with the creative process, a key objective of Tanween.
Interactive art is where audience participation is integral to the artist and the artwork. It’s an evolving form of art that hinges on depicting the audience playful dynamic. Static is replaced by interactive, but how does interactive art allow us to PLAY?
The legendary French artist Henri Matisse said that “creative people are curious, flexible, persistent, and independent with a tremendous spirit of adventure and a love of play.”
Interactive art offers artistic license to all participants, even those who consider themselves the least creative. It emanates an air of empowerment to its audience, where the viewer is transformed into a participant, has an active part to play in the piece itself and becomes immersed in the creative process.
PLAY at Tanween
According to the renowned psychoanalyst Carl Jung, “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.”
Tanween PLAY promises visitors an opportunity to create art by playing to their instincts.
At ADA interactive installation, participants will experience an untamable form of art free from restrictions and control. Filled with helium, ADA is a transparent balloon spiked with charcoal drawing participants’ movements on white walls, ceilings and floors. The more the audience play, the more the ADA patterns, lines, and points intensify in their complexity resulting in an unpredictable and undecipherable artwork.
Moving through Architect of Air walk-in sculpture installation, visitors will emerge with a sense of wonder after immersing in radiant colors and daylight shining through luminarium’s fabric. This installation is a unique sensory experience where visitors will explore Islamic architecture, Archimedean solids, Gothic cathedrals, and natural shapes fused in a world of lights and hues.
At Microworld exhibition, participants will learn how everything is connected by exploring creative coding to design artificial characters and observe their evolution to adapt to their environment.
The Ideal Exhibition dares participants of all age groups to imagine and to unleash their creativity and create their own art gallery.
