Curated by Sophie Mayuko Arni
Dates: November 3 - 27, 2022
Venue: HOTEL ACAO ANNEX
1993-250 Atami, Atami City,
Shizuoka Prefecture 413-855, Japan
Supported by: ATAMI ART GRANT 2022, part of PROJECT ATAMI
Lamya Gargash, Majlis, 2009
Lamya Gargash is presenting her series of photographs entitled Majlis (2009), shot in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Majlises are sitting areas, common in traditional Emirati households. To exhibit Majlis at the sumptuous HOTEL ACAO ANNEX’s Grand Dining Hall creates a unique reverberation between the style of the contemporary Emirati majlis and the bubble-era style of Japanese resorts. In both settings, the goal is to impress visitors and to host them with dignity, elegance, and grandeur.Main Dining Nishiki, 2nd Floor
Artist: Lamya Gargash
Title: Majlis
Date: 2009
Medium: Giclee prints on archival paper, 40 x 40cm each. Inkjet print scrolls. Site-specific installation for “East-East: UAE meets Japan Vol.5, Atami Blues”.
Photography: Muramatsu for Atami Art Grant 2022.
Majlis is a series of photographs by acclaimed Dubai-based photographer Lamya Gargash. The term ‘majlis’ comes from the Arabic word jasala, which literally means “to sit.” These sitting areas are found in almost all Emirati homes, as well as many homes throughout the Arabian Gulf region. They hold a special place in social gathering traditions: majlises represent first and foremost hospitality, one of the main traditional values of Emirati culture.
Majlises are the public-facing sections of people’s homes, where guests including family, relatives, friends, business acquaintances, and their extended circle are invited to gather for hours on end and discuss daily affairs, with refreshments and light food available. Majlises sit at the intersection of public and private spheres: while they are inside people’s homes, they are the social quarters of the home, located away from private bedrooms. Business conversations and intellectual debates are very often carried out in majlises, making these spaces central to the functioning of public society.
In this series of photographs, Gargash documented the evolving styles of the majlis in the UAE, with most photographs shot in Emirati private homes in Dubai. When looking at individual choices of furnishing, which are deeply tied to the personal taste and personality of each homeowner, one can detect the evolution of the majlis from simple sitting area to more ornate halls. The more simple, familial majlis rooms still exist today, but opulent, hotel-like majlises are also becoming plentiful with the prosperity that the UAE has enjoyed in the last fifty years, since the country’s unification in 1971. Many of the more modern majlises take from rococo-style European palace architecture, with chandeliers and gilded frames decorating rooms of velvet sofas, very much mirroring the style of ACAO SPA & RESORT in Atami.
To exhibit Majlis at the sumptuous HOTEL ACAO ANNEX’s Grand Dining Hall creates a unique reverberation between the style of the contemporary Emirati majlis and the bubble-era style of Japanese resorts. In both settings, the goal is to impress visitors and to host them with dignity, elegance, and grandeur. Atami’s resort construction started in the 1950s and accelerated after its inclusion in the Tōkaidō Shinkansen high-speed train route in 1964. Economic growth and transportation routes increased tourism and led to the construction of magnificent hotels structures built on millennia-old natural landscapes. The same can be said about the cities in the UAE, including the capital, Abu Dhabi, as well as Dubai, Sharjah, Fujairah, and Ras Al Khaimah leading the way in residential and hospitality construction, and new decorative furnishings.
For this site-specific installation of Majlis, the audience is also invited to sit on HOTEL ACAO ANNEX’s own furniture, to gather, talk to each other, and appreciate mirroring photographs of sitting areas in the UAE – invited to transport themselves to a private majlis in Dubai, and ponder on the past and present of Atami’s prosperity and development.
“Majlis (マジュリス)” は、ドバイを拠点とする著名な写真家 Lamya Gargash(ラミア・ガーガッシュ) による一連の写真作品です。 “マジュリス” という用語は、文字通り「座る」を意味するアラビア語の” jasala (ジャサラ)” に由来します。これらのシッティング エリアは、ほぼすべてのエミラティ(UAE)の家庭に見られるだけでなく、アラビア湾岸地域の多くの家庭にも見られ、社交の伝統において特別な位置を占めています。マジュリスは何よりもまず “おもてなし” を表しており、エミラティ文化の主要な伝統的価値観の 1 つです。
Majlis は、家族、親戚、友人、仕事上の知人、および彼らの親しい仲間を含むゲストが何時間にも渡り集まり、ホストは、お茶や軽食を用意してゲストを招き、日々の事柄について語り合います。人々の家の中の公共セクションです。 Majlis は、公共の領域と私的な領域の交差点に位置しています。人々が家の中にいる間、そこは、個人の寝室から離れた家の中の社交の場です。ビジネス上の会話や知的な議論はとても頻繁にマジュリスで行われ、これらのスペースは公共社会の機能の中心となっています。
豪華なホテル ACAO アネックスのグランド ダイニング ホールにマジュリスを展示することで、現代のエミラティ マジュリスのスタイルとジャパニーズ リゾートのバブル時代のスタイルとの間に独特の反響が生まれます。どちらの設定でも、目的は訪問者に印象を与え、尊厳、優雅さ、および壮大さで訪問者を “おもてなし” すことです。熱海のリゾート建設は 1950 年代に始まり、1964 年に東海道新幹線の高速鉄道ルートに組み込まれた後、加速しました。経済成長と交通ルートにより観光客が増加し、何千年も前の自然景観の上に建てられた壮大なホテルの建設につながりました。同じことは、首都アブダビをはじめ、ドバイ、シャルジャ、フジャイラ、ラス アル ハイマなどの UAE の都市についても言えます。住宅やホスピタリティ溢れるホテルの建設、新しい装飾家具の分野で先を行っています。
このマジュリスのサイトスペシフィックなインスタレーションにより、観客はアラブ首長国連邦のシッティング エリアのミラーリング写真の鑑賞に招かれます。そして、ドバイの応接間マジュリスに腰をおろすごとく、ホテル ACAO アネックスの家具に座り、互いに言葉を交わし、熱海の繁栄、発展の過去と現在に思いを馳せてください。
Lamya Gargash (b.1982, Dubai; based in Dubai)
Lamya Gargash is an artist exploring modernity, mortality, identity and the banal. Gargash is heavily inspired by inhabited and abandoned spaces as well as cultural heritage in a context of rapid change. Through her photographs, Gargash captures the beauty of human trace and the value of the mundane. She was selected to represent the UAE in its debut pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2009 where she showcased her Familial series. In the same year, she also participated in the 9th Sharjah Biennial in Sharjah, UAE with her Majlis series. Gargash's works have been included in solo and group shows around the world. Solo shows include; Sahwa, The Third Line, Dubai, UAE (2020); Traces, The Third Line, Dubai, UAE (2014); Through the Looking Glass, The Third Line, Dubai, UAE (2012); Presence, Galleria Marabini, Bologna, Italy (2012); Presence, Galerie Brigitte Schenk, Cologne, Germany (2010); Presence, The Third Line, Doha, Qatar (2008). Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE and Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE. She graduated from the American University of Sharjah, and pursued a postgraduate degree in Communication Design from Central Saint Martins.