نجـــوم الغانــــم
Nujoom Alghanem

The reason behind calling this body of work “The Cathedral of Faces” is because it revolves around the faces in their collective form and their intense presence with all their feelings, emotions, feelings and unspoken words.

The word cathedral is originally derived from the Latin name Cathedra, meaning the seat. In the Roman era, it meant the great ceremonial building or merchandise space.

That is why I decided to call this work by this name, which accommodates the meaning of the large building and the meaning of the large merchandise exhibition and in the modern era it is a place to meet people in large numbers, especially during religious rituals.

In these cathedrals, people often come with their faces full of pain and sadness, and their expressions are dominated by supplication, and they often do not exchange conversations, but leave their expressions in these spaces. They nod to each other, they might exchange few words but rarely raise their heads.

In the space of faces that is represented by this particular artwork, these faces take on different dimensions, as they are present with their silence, but also with all their expressions as they stare at visitors from every direction and at the same time invite them to remove the barriers imposed by the reality of the situation today and interact with them, whether by breaking the barrier of empty frames hanged in front of the paintings or when they turn around and find themselves becoming part of the body of work through the installed mirrors placed on the opposite side of the space.

 

It’s worth mentioning also that approximately 50% of these faces made an appearance in my film project “Passage”, in which I participated in the UAE pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2019, where the faces surrounded the fictional character “Falak” and at the same time occupied the world of the writer, director and artist, where she appears surrounded by them in her studio.

When these faces were displayed at the Maraya Art Center in Sharjah in 2021, it was the first time that visitors could see them up close and in person. This was also the first time that these artworks were shown to the public.