Ebdaa Cultural and Fine Arts Center in Qatif, Saudi Arabia, completed its two-day trip to Qatar last weekend. A group of some 35 artists led by Abduladheem AlDhamen, director of the center, visited various arts and cultural centers in Doha such as Childhood Cultural village, Art Creative Youth Center, Girls Creativity Center, Katara, the cultural village, Souq Waqif and Villagio Shopping Mall. The group was warmly welcomed by the administration and the committee's supervisors of the Childhood Cultural Center on their arrival to the center. A painting workshop for elementary school girls was held wherein the Saudi and Qatari artists participated side by side effectively. The next stopover of the trip was at Art Creative Youth Center, where the Ebdaa group took a tour of the center and met with the trainers of each department which varied from Arabic Calligraphy, fine arts, music, graphic art and sculpture. They enjoyed the pencil portraits and still life exhibition. Salman Al-Malik, the center's director received the group warmly and talked briefly about the youth center and the importance of existence of such centers in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The third stopover was at the Girl's Creativity Center, wherein a workshop was held to paint on wooden cubes much to the interest of the Qatari print and electronic media such as AlSharq, AlRaiah, Al Arab newspaper, the Jeddah Radio from Saudi Arabia. “Such serious gatherings ensure and strengthen the bonds between the countries, exchange knowledge and experiences and create cultural conversations,”Abdulaziz Sadiq, a board member of the Girls Center said. “We didn't expect such a big Saudi artists' group and what was amazing is that they came from different cities from Saudi Arabia.” Abduladheem Al Dhamen, general manager of Ebdaa center, was very pleased with Qatari peoples' hospitality. “There are distinctive Qatari talented artists,” he said. “This trip is one of Ebdaa Center's communicative projects which make trips and visits inside and outside of Saudi Arabia.” He said these trips are aimed to establish strong relationships with artists and keeping them up-to-date with the newest artistic events in the world. “We made trips to Kuwait, Dubai, Jordan and London,” he said. “We are eager to visit Qatar again.”
