Qatar Foundation’s Seeroo fi al ardh art installation by M F Husain is open for school visits to help students learn about culture and heritage outside of the classroom.
Seeroo fi al ardh, unveiled in 2019, is part of Qatar Foundations’s (QF’s) growing art collection at Education City. The late Indian artist Husain incorporated philosophical and cultural elements to create his masterpiece that is experienced through an audiovisual 20-minute performance.
Suad Al Salem, Head of Visual, Literary and Drama Section at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, says the installation is embedded within the educational curriculum.
“The Seeroo fi al ardh exhibition at Qatar Foundation comes as one of the leading exhibitions in Qatar that can be benefited from educationally and on many levels, such as integrating visual arts with the rest of the subjects within the school curriculum,” she said.
“The exhibition uses traditional and contemporary elements that relate to social studies with elements like lighting, movement, and sound which all relate to science. On the other hand, the exhibition took its name from a Quranic verse, which reflects the integration with Arabic and Islamic subjects.”
Al Salem explained how Seeroo fi al ardh will be implemented in the curriculum for public schools, saying: “Field visits to Seeroo fi al ardh aim to develop and add to the students’ creative knowledge and skills. The visual formations will be used in art lessons, as well as theatre classes to encourage students’ dramatic abilities inspired by the art installations.”
More than 250 schoolteachers in Qatar have been given an exclusive tour of Seeroo fi al ardh to see how the art installation could be incorporated into a cross-curriculum plan.
Carolyn Parker, Director of Qatar Academy Sidra, part of QF’s Pre-University Education, said: “Engaging in art is essential to learning experiences and conceptual journeys and adds to an understanding of culture.
“Art and arts education skills can carry over into all other academic subjects and into life outside the classroom. It is through art, and engaging in art exhibitions, that students can engage in observation, interpretation, and analysis, and explore different perspectives.
“Skills used in all areas of study and seen in the world around can be practiced through art, as students are able to determine whether what they think is accurate and relevant. Critical thinking is a skill for life, and while it can be developed through exploration in the arts, it has uses in all aspects of education and life experience.”
Learn how M F Husain’s installation has made its mark on Qatar’s emerging art scene in a documentary that will be aired on Al Jazeera Arabic tomorrow at 7.3pm.
