Sana Abdul Salam Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — The Dar Al Hekma School of Design opened the design symposium titled “Identity” on Monday. Suhair Al-Qurashi, president of Dar Al-Hekma, inaugurated the symposium with a welcome address. Keynote speaker Lisa DeLong, owner of DeLong Designs in the US, spoke about how passion is essential to the work that any person does. “There has to be no essential dichotomy between the ideas of work and play. I've seen artists who, while working, are in a full state of concentration. They're making breakthroughs and are very productive,yet they're also in a full state of enjoyment,” said DeLong. In collaboration with the German Consulate here, the ceremony featured performances by jazz pianist Cornelius Claudio Kreusch, and his brother, classical guitarist Johannes Tonio Kreusch. Johannes and Cornelius played self-created compositions, and ended with a joint performance. Cornelius said: “I am very grateful to be part of such a significant event, especially because of the theme. The question that has been posed on identity, ‘who am I' is literally the base for our existence. What shaped my identity is music, and this music was shaped by significant events in my life. I am grateful to be able to share this with the audience tonight.” The symposium featured workshops and panel discussions from 21 international speakers and 15 local industry specialists in the field of visual communication, fashion design, architecture, and interior design. Students' works created in the workshops were exhibited at the college. According to the organizers, the theme of the event was inspired by both the uniqueness and multiplicity of identity, and how it can be universally viewed from different perspectives. Consequently, workshops in different disciplines took diverse approaches to exploring the concept. Karen Heard, an instructor on the workshops on fashion design, said that she gave her students an image from Saudi heritage, and asked them to progress with creating an inspired design. “I showed them the image only partially and concealed where the image actually came from,” said Heard. Students had to respond to the partially revealed image by using material like paper, string and plastic to create a shape and give it structure. “Although it's helpful to create designs on paper, I wanted them to go beyond that and visualize their ideas as a three dimensional structure.” Heard said that while students were initially very surprised at being asked to work on such abstract levels, they were receptive to the ideas and she was satisfied with the results. Heard is also the assistant international recruitment and development coordinator at the London College of Fashion, which is part of the University of the Arts in London. Jinia Sarker, a student taking the workshops on architecture, was excited to learn from architects Mostafa El Sayed and Sara Saleh, who work with Zaha Hadid's consultancy. “I learnt a lot about aspects like flexible fabrication and tensile structure, so the experience of taking these workshops has been amazing,” said Sarker. “These speakers come from faraway places, and usually hold workshops for 10 or 15 days, so I feel like three days were very less as we were not able to take up big installation projects. So, I feel (think) the workshops could have been longer,” added Sarker.
