Magzoid Magazine - Luxury Magazine in the Creative Space | April 2023

Traversing the artistic
landscape: A journey of
discovery and innovation
- Exclusive to Magzoid
Nujoom Alghanem, an Emirati artist,
poet, and multi-award-winning film
director, was born in Dubai in 1962.
She has published eight poetry
collections and produced approximately
twenty films, including short fiction, short
documentaries, art films, and seven featurelength
documentaries, which have garnered
local, regional, and international recognition.
Nujoom is the founder of Nahar Productions,
a film production company based in Dubai,
and also works as a professional trainer and
mentor in filmmaking, art, and creative writing.
Her poems have been translated into various
languages, such as Spanish, German, French,
Turkish, Italian, Macedonian, Greek, and Urdu.
Nujoom earned her bachelor’s degree in
Video Production from Ohio University in the
United States in 1996 and completed her MA
in Media Production from the School of Film,
Griffith University in Australia in 1999. Although
Nujoom started practicing drawing during high
school, she only considered it a hobby until
she met the late artist Hassan Sharif in the
mid-1980s. She then began producing some
paintings and sculptural works at Al-Muaraija
Studio in Sharjah, where she presented them
to the public for the first time.
In January 1985, Nujoom founded the
Aqwas group with artist Hassan Sharif, Youssef
Khalil, the late Sudanese storyteller, and Khalid
Albudoor, the poet, researcher, and translator.
She also participated with the Emirates Fine
Arts Society in the fourth annual exhibition at
the Expo Center in Sharjah on March 28, 1985.
She was among five artists who participated
in the Rock, Paper, Scissors: Positions in
Play exhibition at the Venice Biennale’s UAE
National Pavilion, curated by Hammad Nasar,
in 2017. During the exhibition, she presented
her work, “Between Heaven and Earth – The
body I borrowed,” which integrated sound and
images for the first time.
In 2018, she collaborated with British singer
and songwriter Sami Yusuf on a joint work
called The Room of Mysteries for Sharjah’s
21st annual Islamic Art Festival, which had the
theme “Horizon.” The exhibition took place at
the Sharjah Art Museum.
Also in 2018, as part of the “U.A.E. Unlimited”
platform, she mentored six emerging artists for
the Tashweesh: Noise of Materials fifth session
exhibition and displayed her installation work,
“Around Us,” as a guest artist at the Maraya Art
Center in Sharjah. The exhibition was curated
by Laura Metzler.
In 2019, she represented the UAE as the solo
artist at the Venice Biennale in Italy, showcasing
her site-specific film, Passage, which was cowritten,
designed, and supervised by curators
Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath.
She held a solo exhibition titled Malamih
at the Maraya Art Center in Sharjah in 2021,
curated by Dr. Nina Heydemann. The exhibition
featured artwork from three floors, including
paintings, ceramic sculptures, installations,
and video art, all shown for the first time.
- feature@magzoid.com
www.magzoid.com April 2023
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