Moorfields’ Sense of Sight art competition winners display their 3D works in UAE art galleries

Moorfields has exhibited the seven winners of the UAE Sense of Sight art competition marking World Sight Day 2016. The winning artworks were displayed first as white 3D panels with just the contours of the picture challenging visitors to ‘feel’ the picture, before the real image was revealed and appreciated through the sense of sight. The two exhibitions were hosted at Ayyam Gallery in Dubai and Salwa Zeidan Gallery in Abu Dhabi.

Visitors to Moorfields’ Sense of Sight gallery shows in Dubai and Abu Dhabi were first blindfolded and then guided around the exhibition gallery to each of the seven winning 3D artworks, they first felt the 3D artworks before they saw the real 2D artworks. From shapes and images of the Burj Khalifa to the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, from animal forms to human figures and more complex combinations, visitors tested their sense of touch before sense of sight.

The Sense of Sight competition and exhibitions were designed to highlight and appreciate the gift of sight, to mark World Sight Day 2016. Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai and Moorfields Eye Hospital Centre Abu Dhabi invited the UAE professional design and arts community and budding young artists to share their new and original artworks, images, and photographs, in celebration of the sense of sight. Artists and photographers were asked to look at the world in its full three dimensions and think about how to express this visually and in a way that would intrigue viewers first by touch and then sight.

Moorfields received hundreds of entries comprising photographs, designs and paintings – portraits, landscapes and abstracts. Seven selected winners had their work produced by Moorfields in 3D, and displayed in unique tactile art shows which were free of charge and open to the public, held at Ayyam Gallery, Al Quoz in Dubai for three days (October 27-29), and Salwa Zeidan Gallery in Abu Dhabi, (November 5-6).

One of the winners – an engineer based in Dubai – had submitted his dramatic nightscape photograph of the Grand Mosque, one of the easier 3D renderings for visitors to feel their way around, given the iconic shape and form of the Mosque.  

“We were thrilled with the response to the competition and with the reaction to both the shows,” said Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai’s Business Development and Marketing Director, Maha Aboughali. “Visitors were quick to enter into the spirit of the gallery exhibitions putting on the blindfold and testing their ability to feel and identify a 3D image; it was surprisingly difficult for them to feel the image and the appreciation for the sense of sight – the basic message of the entire project – was very clear. We all rely on our senses and the gift of sight is often taken for granted; we sometimes need reminding about the importance of good eyesight and to maintaining this vital sense.”

The Sense of Sight competition winners were:

Dana Zarafili Zureikat – ‘Dancing Ballerina’

Marcky Mark – ‘Girl with Leaf’

Don Moraes – ‘The Beautiful Mosque’

Siddharth Prem – ‘Reflections of a Gorgeous Sunset’

Liza Ayash – ‘The Powerful Gaze’

Dana Salmeh – ‘Soul Mirror’

Samy Essam Nasr – ‘Wild Beauty’