Songs Of The Sea

Kuwaiti multimedia artist Zahed Sultan has mixed traditional pearl diving music with the sounds of Jamaican dub, and the results are hauntingly impressive.

- Zahed Sultan

Early last year, the Kuwaiti multimedia artist Zahed Sultan converted an old heritage house in Sharjah into a recording studio. An adjacent courtyard was also converted, this time into an outdoor space inspired by a traditional majlis. Both would essentially act as his home for the next two weeks.

He was there at the request of The Heart Of Sharjah association as an artist-in-residence, working on a project called Hiwar (Arabic for dialogue), which explored the “nostalgic propaganda” of the region’s traditional pearl diving music. What would eventually emerge would be a re-imagining of that music through the lens of Jamaican dub and a collection of live improvisations.

“We spent the majority of our time in Sharjah during the two-week residency exploring neighbourhoods, filming, rehearsing and recording improvised sessions,” explains Sultan, who worked in collaboration with a local pearl-diving troupe called the Ali Al Ishr Band. “It was an intense experience but a worthwhile one as Hiwar has evolved into a significant venture of mine.”

Sultan’s Hiwar is an investigation into the links between traditional pearl diving music (traditionally known as fidjeri) and modern artistic trends. Although primarily focussed on music, it also incorporates elements of film and performance.

“Hiwar is an evolving project,” admits Sultan. “From an output perspective, it has culminated in the release of a short film, an EP, and an audio-visual dance performance. The idea is to activate a connection with fidjeri music. By appropriating its culture and reimagining its forms, I aspire for people, myself included, to develop an intrinsic relationship with our past instead of erring upon hand-me-down nostalgia.”