Artists display women power creatively
dubai — Marking the International Women’s Day, a unique art exhibition titled “Empowering Girls Through Education” was held at the Novotel Dubai World Trade Centre recently. The exhibition showcased 17 different artworks by high-profile and emerging Dubai artists, representing countries where girls are denied access to proper education.
The exhibition aimed at shedding light on the issue of female empowerment and to help in the fundraising efforts of Dubai Cares. Out of the total proceeds from the exhibition, 70 per cent will be donated to Dubai Cares.
The exhibition has been initiated by a 16-year-old Marsailie Shiyi Lin Troup from Greenfield Community School, Dubai, as an IB Project.
Explaining what inspired her project, Shiyi said: “I became aware of this issue when studying the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the inspirational story of Malala Yousafzai who almost died while defending her right to education. Her words ‘All I want is education and I am afraid of no one,’ echo in my mind all the time.”
Other strong influencers of Shiyi’s decision to focus on women’s education were words of the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who said “A country’s greatest investment lies in building generations of educated and knowledgeable youth.”
All the artworks on display reflect this theme and represent the countries in which Dubai Cares has educational programmes.
A powerful painting displayed at the exhibition was a digital piece of art made by artist Erum Abdullah. It looked as if a page of a book was converted into a woman’s face. “It’s a text portrait of a reallife woman who is a fighter. Her artwork depicted Pakistan’s Mukhtara Mai who was abused and gang-raped in the name of revenge. “They (the abusers) expected her to commit suicide after this incident but Mukhtara rose like a phoenix from ashes and went to the court and got the criminals sentenced to death.”
“Mukhtara became a role model for women in the rural areas, now runs a welfare organisation for women. My message through my artwork is that women are not weak. They may be quiet but don’t take them for granted. We must stand for our rights and not bow down to injustice.”
Artist Athira’s painitng was done using strong colours depicting group of fashionable women of different community moving ahead in a group together in a path of light, discovering themselves; Whereas artist Linda Hollier’s artwork was done using a completely different technique — she makes all her artworks on her smart phone using various apps. The figure in her artwork titled ‘Noor’ shows a light emanating from a woman, pointing out that women have this power to make their presence felt and touch lives positively.
Another artist Ria Sharma said: “You see my painting shows a girl with beautiful hair but certain things tangled in her hair – those are the different roles she is capable of handling. Example journalism, engineering etc are said to be male-dominated fields but the point I am driving home is that give women equal opportunities (if not more) as given to men then they can excel in any and every field.”
Afshan Qureshi’s painting titled ‘Empowerment’ shows a veiled woman with only her eyes (expressive) visible. “My painting shows a visionary woman who is very confident and not afraid to explore
I became aware of this issue when studying the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the inspirational story of Malala Yousafzai who almost died while defending her right to education.”
Marsailie Shiyi Lin Troup 16-year-old artist
17 artworks by emerging Dubai artists were featured in the 5-day exhibition
new ideas. She takes up challenges but at the same time also doesn’t compromise on her values, culture. Her strong gaze depicts that she has dreams and she will achieve them.”
The five-day exhibition that concluded on the International Women’s Day (March 8) was organised by The Ajala Project, a Dubai-based social enterprise that uses art to showcase and support innovative social impact initiatives around the world. Those who were unable to visit the exhibition can still have a look or buy the artworks online at