Sound & Silence

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Calligraphy is a quintessential part of Arab culture, an artform spanning the spiritual and material, the visual and the verbal. Soraya Syed dives into the essence of her practice: the geometry of Arabic letters and their connection to the human form. Through a display of photographic images and a series of ink on paper artworks and sculptures, the calligrapher draws an unprecedented connection between the human body in contortion and calligraphic form.

Her sculptures are formed from white Carrara marble dust from the same quarries that provided Michelangelo his single block of stone for the Pieta.  White Carrara marble dust is a basic ingredient of the ink Soraya uses, the innovative formula specially blended for her by artist and ink-maker Jason Logan. (The Soraya Syed-Jason Logan collaboration is documented in film The Colour of Ink released later this year). Marble dust is not traditionally used in liquid form instead, the quarry’s marble is renowned for being the source for Michelangelo’s sculptures.

The calligrapher invites the audience to look differently at the materials she uses in her practice and to engage with them directly. A mesmerising installation with magnetite ink suspended in water, invites the audience to pick up a magnet and move it around creating calligraphic-like shapes that throw shadows, allowing the visitor to become the artist.

The experience concludes with a magisterial calligraphic monolith that is at once a centrepiece and backdrop, with light and projection changing the space within a circadian rhythm and a soundscape of natural frequencies that induce a sense of contemplative serenity. 

In Sound and Silence, Soraya Syed brings home the power of Arabic script and its enduring resonance and relevancy.

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