20 Minarets

The project “20 Minarets from the Arab World,” is a significant cultural project, where Bahia takes the minaret, an important element of the architectural landscape in the Arab world, as the starting point. Here, she paints 20 minarets from the Arab world while taking into consideration their proportions and begins with the smallest minaret from Mogadishu and ends with the tallest one from Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates. She also includes the minaret of the Great Mosque of Aleppo in Syria but it appears to be in ruins to represent the cultural disaster that struck in 2013 when the minaret was bombed.

In this project, Bahia was concerned with how the Arab cultural heritage was being physically destroyed on one hand and, on the other hand, she showcases how it was being intellectually attacked by Western nations and labelled as backwards and terrorist. As part of the installation, Bahia also included the adhan (call to prayer) using the voice of a woman.

Call to Prayer

"I decided to have the call for prayer raised by the voice of a woman instead of a man. Mai Kamal is a 21-year-old mezzo soprano training at the time at the Cairo Opera House. For the past 1400 years only men have been raising the calls for prayer all over the Arab world; I felt that it was time for the feminine to raise their voices with the same chant calling for people “to hasten to worship and to hasten to success” using Mai’s melodious young strong voice. This is also a call for peace, equality and understanding."

Listen to the Call for Prayer

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark. Wall painting and audio art installation. 31 January 2014 - 4 May 2014