Daily life of the Festival, Algeria

For the International Cultural Festival of Miniature and Illumination in Algeria, I visited Tlemcen between 18-29 June and returned back to Australia with lots of great memories.

Tlemcen, the capital city of Islamic culture, held the 4th of the International Miniature and Illumination Festival this year; and I am personally very excited to be there and feel their breathtaking cultural and historical atmosphere.

I arrived to the capital city of Algeria, Algiers, on 18th of June. The very next day, all participants travelled from Algiers to Tlemcen where the festival was in place.

Organization is started with the opening ceremony of the exhibition in the Imama Palace of Culture on June 20th. Best of the internationally recognized illumination and miniature artists from all around the world were exhibiting their most recent artworks in this exhibition.

The second day of the festival continued with couple of lectures given by Ms. Sereen Abd Erahmane Echoubaki from Jordan and Ms. Mavluda Yuldashev from Uzbekistan who both talked about the virtuous geometry in the Islamic Arts and Uzbekistan traditional art respectively.

In the third day of the festival, Iranian artists had a workshop about the Iranian style miniature form and explained its traditional and modern aspects. The Fattahi brothers, Ihsan and Mohcen, whose father is the founder of Fattahi School, gave an idea about the practices in this school, which is specialized in the drawing of birds and flowers in a modern form.

The following day, a classical form western miniature art samples presented by French artists Ms. Martin Esparcieux and Ms. Martin Damien in the Palace of Culture Immama and their works gave the festival a different dimension. After this, Pakistani artists Ms. Amna Hachmi and Mr. Hassan Kami continued to their workshops about Mogul impression in the traditional miniature art.

During this time we were very busy to participate into workshops and lectures, and share our experiences; however, we also had some spare time to walk around Tlemcen and have some shopping. We loved to visit mystical and historical places such as Sidi Boumediene, Great Mosque, Fezza cave, and others.

After one day break on Friday we continued the workshops with Turkish artists, Ms. Hatice Kubra Tavasli and Ms. Fatma Nur Tavasli, who both demonstrated Ottoman influence in the illumination art.

In the final day of the festival, a marbling workshop held by a Tunisian artist, and after that, a miniature workshop led by two Indian artists.

Overall, the festival provided a great international platform to exchange the ideas and experiences throughout various workshops and lectures; so it was very beneficial to the artists participated in with different backgrounds but also to the local artists to develop their skills.

As an official guest of Algeria, I would like to say a kind thank you for her Excellency, The Minister of Culture, Mrs. Khalida Toumi and as well as Mr. Moussa Kechkech, the Steward of the festival and also his enthusiastic team for their warm welcome and great hospitality during my stay.