Nazir Tanbouli, Egyptian artist, at Liverpool Arab Arts Festival

If I asked you to imagine a day at a city-centre cultural festival, what would pop into your mind? Music? Crowds? Food? Dancing? An all-round sensory hit of sight, sound, smells and taste?

Probably. I would.

But not, perhaps, a feeling of peace, of quiet, of meditation and of mindfulness.

When I photographed the 2016 Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, it was a feast for the senses. But, for all the colour and music and dancing and food, it was one of the quieter artists who stood out for me: Nazir Tanbouli.

Nazir is an Egyptian-born artist, now living in London. He brought his ‘drawing performance’ to the festival, first to the World Museum and then the Bluecoat art centre. In these drawing performances, Nazir creates of a piece of art whilst in a state of mindfulness-like meditation. Not a meditative trance. Just … thoughtful and peaceful. He creates spontaneous patterns and marks based on the Arabic script.

Nazir begins with a huge sheet of plain white paper taped to the floor, and, using a decorator’s paintbrush attached to an extension pole, he makes calligraphic marks and strokes on the paper in black ink. He moves around the sheet of paper until it’s covered to all corners. He’s completely absorbed in the work, the piece evolving by itself. No forward planning, no drafts and no edits.

It was really quite mesmerising to watch Nazir moving back and forth, dipping the brush in the ink, making marks until a clean sheet of paper was covered in art. And as someone who finds it harder to express myself with the written language than with my photography, it was inspiring to see him create art out of language.

It was great fun photographing him as well; capturing not only the piece of work building up, but Nazir’s movement and concentration. I brought home so many photos – it was an immensely difficult job, whittling this essay down to just a handful of photos.

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Julia

Unless otherwise credited, all photos in this post are © Julia Thorne. If you’d like to use any of my photos in a lecture, presentation or blog post, please don’t just take them; drop me an email via my contact page. If you share them on social media, please link back to this site or to one of my social media accounts. Thanks!