Nevine El-Aref gives vent to her fantasy and admires some masterpieces at the Aswan International Sculpture Symposium Under the cobalt skies of sun-soaked Aswan stand 15 huge granite sculptures. They shimmer in the light that catches the tiny red, black and white crystals embedded in the rock, and their allure seems to reflect on the spectators. Yet these are no ancient figures. Here is a bolting horse bursting out of a stone block; there is a magic carpet; there is an ancient Egyptian Eiffel Tower; a water tap; a window and a door; a flying bird; a gaping void and a fingerprint. Last week was the closing ceremony of Aswan International Sculpture Symposium (AISS), an event where solid blocks of granite are transformed into distinguished pieces of art, reflecting the artists' mood following 45 days of hard work to carve, cut, drill and polish their own masterpiece. This year, the atmosphere at the 15th round of the AISS is different. This is reflected in the artists' optimistic mood and their diligent efforts. Admiring these sculptures is definitely a mood uplift, imbuing an air of exuberance over the spectators. This was not only my own opinion, but was shared by many of my colleagues and the sculptors who attended the ceremony. Thus, bizarrely, all the pieces bear a touch of optimism under their hard and solid frame. These impressions nagged at my curiosity and led me on a search for what it was that brought it to the fore. "Beata Rostas" was the keyword for this enigma. Rostas is a young Hungarian artist who took part this year for the first time. A young, blonde with a cheerful smile and a warm and friendly personality, she spread her buoyancy throughout the symposium. Whenever one heard someone laughing out loud, engaged in banter or singing, that was where you would probably find Rostas. "This is my first time in Egypt and my first time at the AISS," Rostas told Al-Ahram Weekly. The AISS was the means to bring her to Egypt and make her dream for a visit come true. She said that as soon as she stepped out of the plane onto Egyptian soil she gave vent to her desire to throw herself into the country's culture, people and traditions, and its small but essential details, in order to ensure that once-in-a- lifetime experience. Over the past 45 days she has devoted herself not only to sculpting, but also to learning Arabic and practising Nubian folklore dances and songs. She ate traditional Egyptian food and visited mosques and Coptic churches. She hoped to add a spiritual overtone to her personality. "I really enjoyed the experience and came out of it with lots of impressions that were thoroughly expressed in my pieces of art, which I called Impressions," Rostas told the Weekly. She said her piece was a human-shaped apple with legs, arms, shoulders and a small head. The body is carved with several small designs expressing the impressions, or the fingerprints, of people she encountered during her stay in Egypt. "I believe that every person leaves his or her own print on the other, which will last forever," Rostas says. And to show how much she has become part of Egyptian society, Rostas has even joined in a dance performance presented by the Nubian folkloric group at the closing ceremony. "She is really adorable and a bint nokta [fun lover]" says the writer and columnist Assem Hanafi. Hanafi told the Weekly that when he first met Rostas, she told him she was half- Hungarian and half-Egyptian, and that was why she spoke Arabic "almost fluently". "I totally believed her, since she was using colloquial Arabic," Hanafi says. Japanese artist Yoshin Ogata has the personality of a philosopher under the influence of water and its mission for human life. His affection with water began when he was three years old and saw a fire that had broken out in his family's wooden house being extinguished by water. A few years later he became a commercial fisherman so he could get some experience and earn money. Hence water, for Ogata, symbolised safety, protection and a way of earning his daily bread, as well as being a source of inspiration. "When I started my sculpting career I translated my affection of water in all my works," Ogata says. Water, like life and feelings, is constantly changing its shape. "My piece in the symposium is another kind of water shape, which reflects the continuity of life," Ogata says. For example, water comes from the sky in the shape of rain; it overwhelms the earth and the seas; and some of the water evaporates and returns to the sky in cloud form; and then again it falls as rain, and so on. "It makes a cycle like our life." he says. His piece is a tall, thin red granite block decorated with four rows of ripple and with an oval hole at its centre. In front of it is a huge, rounded red granite block cracked down the middle. Here, Ogata says, pointing to the rounded block, was a drop of water caused when a pebble was thrown in the water to create ripples and a drop finds its way to the ground. "For me, this drop is like an egg which in future will be a hen," he says. As for Chinese artist Zhao Li, who has such a romantic outlook on life that she has chosen to carve Aladdin's magic carpet, which can whisk one away from reality to a world of fantasy where one can give vent to one's dreams. Li has carved her piece in black granite, which she has glazed. In front of it she has placed several granite balls to represent the material she has seen in China thrown up by volcanoes, which symbolise the hard life of the people. "I don't like normal sculptures," Georgian artist John Cogaberishvili told the Weekly. "I like contrast and big dimensional sculptures, which is why I chose three colours of stone in my piece, and it's very long, almost 10 metres high," Cogaberishvili says. This gave the piece a more vivid air, since every colour and stone has its own lure and allure. "For me, this difference makes me feel that they have a special dialogue between them," he says. Cogaberishvili was inspired by ancient Egyptian reliefs engraved on temple walls, which is why he made the mane of his horse look like the snake on top of the Pharaohs' crown. He plans to come back next year to carve the second part of the horse. French artist Nicolae Fleissig, who exudes calm and composure, carried on with the piece he began last year. This is a bedroom: at the last symposium he carved a bed and a chair, and this year he carved a door and a window as well as two bench seats. Fleissig told the Weekly that his sculpture was an open window onto the world. "Choosing the bedroom as my piece is my attempt to create a living space in the void and to humanise the desert," he pointed out. Fleissig uses the colour blue as a decorative motive of his piece, following the ancient Egyptian custom of using lapis lazuli to decorate tombs and temples. When the Weekly asked Adam Henein, the commissar of the AISS, what was new in this round, he said there was nothing particularly new and that it was rather a continuity of the mission begun 15 years ago. And that, he said, was enough. This year the participating artists were pioneers in their profession and had carved very special and distinguished pieces of art. "This is very important to the AISS since the show is a part of it," Henein said. It was also a leading example for junior sculptors, who were producing some very efficient work in a very short time. Henein likes the bolting horse of the Georgian artist and the dream it conveys, like something from The Thousand and One Nights. "It gave vent to his fantasy," Henein said. adding that this was why he had combined several differently-coloured granites in various shapes and styles. He said that if it were music it would be composed by Richard Wagner, with loud sounds. "This is really stunning," he said. "I love music, and although I don't like Wagner this doesn't mean it isn't good music. "On the contrary," Henein added, pointing out that every artist had his or her own taste. Henein said that, unlike others, Ogata, the Japanese artist, used carving techniques to fashion a mutual dialogue between him and his piece, just like the music of Bach. Henein was not altogether satisfied with all the junior sculptors who took part this year. He liked Mohamed Abbas's two contemporary pieces, which were attached to one another. "Abbas worked just enough to make a beautiful piece of granite," Henein said, but some others had overworked their pieces in a way that left them without a core identification. They were beautiful pieces but dry, without soul. "Carving is like any other natural skill, like writing or painting, you must know when to stop." The AISS board chooses participants according to the work they have produced in their professional life, but Henein said, however, that while some did not exert enough effort to carve a special piece, "I feel that some of them came to the AISS for leisure, or for a good learning opportunity, or have a special reason in his mind." "The AISS has done what politics and diplomacy has ailed to achieve," Henein says, quoting a diplomatic friend. He says that these sculptures carved by different sculptors from different nationalities were standing together in peace, forming a special symphony of art. The Aswan symposium has been so successful that its skilled assistants are travelling as advisers to Abu Dhabi, which is planning a similar event. Perhaps the heart of diplomacy is set in stone after all.
