Workshops

Zaki Al-Maboren

Co-creator of a new world culture.

A significant part of Zaki Al-Maboren's work is of educational nature. It involves a series of projects and workshops for adults, teenagers, or children, where participants collaboratively work on a creative task.

Examples from the workshops:
Zaki Al-Maboren always approaches the task in a practical and improvisational manner. In the project 'Lebenswelten' (Living Worlds) at the Albanischule Göttingen in the year 2000 (an Exop2000 project), he worked with the children during the first week of their vacation. He had them design an animal image for each continent, cut it out in life-size, and paint it.

During the theological seminar organized by the Dienste in Übersee DÜ and the Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst eed, which has been held annually in a similar manner since 1997 at the Haus am Schüberg in Ammersbeck near Hamburg, he created textile images with participants from various religions, including Christian, Islamic, and Hindu.

During the project week at the Gesamtschule Leopoldshöhe, Bad Salzuflen, in 1998, he conveyed the feeling of life along an African river using media such as slides, photos, and films depicting life on the Nile. He also had the students create stamps, which they used to print fabric panels as wall images, which they could then color.

The project 'Bears of the Nations' from the year 2006 is international. Almost all countries of the world designated an artist who gathered in a large hall in Berlin and painted a bear figure, 2 meters in height, each. Zaki Al-Maboren was selected for Sudan. The finished sculptures were exhibited in major cities around the world and sold as miniature replicas.

The project 'o.camp' was created in collaboration with the Hessian Ministry of Culture and the German Children and Youth Foundation dkjs. Zaki Al-Maboren worked with several age groups. Adolescents from 9 classes, selected from different schools, created large sculptural objects and developed pictorial leisure games.

Zaki Al-Maboren berichtet, mit welcher Begeisterung und mit welchem gegenseitigen Verständnis Menschen verschiedener Kulturen, Religionen und Sprachen bei künstlerischen Arbeiten zusammenfinden. In einer Welt; die immer dichter zusammenwächst, ist die Schaffung einer Weltkultur unerlässlich. Diese erlaubt das schöpferische Zusammenleben der Menschen verschiedener Herkunft. Sie erlaubt den Austausch von Gedanken und Gefühlen mit den Mitteln der Bilder und Plastiken, der Musik, des Tanzes und der Sprache, und sie umfasst und gestaltet die Rechte und Pflichten, die Verhaltensweisen und Umgangsformen aller Menschen.

Only through a world culture can the tremendous forces unleashed by science and technology be restrained. This applies not only to the forces of warlike destruction but also to those of peaceful production, which endanger our environment, climate, world oceans, primeval forests, and the diversity of animal and plant life.

A world culture is essential if the Earth is to remain habitable for the next millennium. The arts and artists like Zaki Al-Maboren show us ways to shape it.

Prof. Hans Bauer, 2008
Hochschule für Bildende Künste HBK, Kassel