Size: 9.25 × 14 inches
Material: Mixed Media (gouache, acrylic pen, stickers, sequins) on cold-press paper
This is the hand-painted original of the “Dreamland Taziya” piece.
If you select “custom framing,” please email me at nabihaiderali@gmail.com to go over framing options.
***
“From the outside, one might mistake the brightly-sequined Taziya—constructed painstakingly with a bamboo frame and materials ranging from cloth, colored paper and wood planks to thermocol, tinsel, and plastic beads—to be too colorful and fantastical against the black backdrop of Muharram season. Is it an expression of joy? No, it is a labor of love crafted by the hands of the masses for whom the physical Karbala is often out of reach. Why then do most Taziyas visually differ from the shrines, even with reference images of the Haramain being plenty in our day and age?
The goal of Taziya-making is not to replicate to a T the appearance of Imam Hussain’s shrine. A Taziya is meant to embody the feeling of awe, the overwhelming beauty one encounters at the door of the Karbalai martyrs, the eternal message of hope and perseverance against all oppression that one takes away and plants in every struggle back home. It is love localized as far as Trinidad, Tobago, and Jamaica, as ancestral memory evolving with every step and winding journey of its spiritual descendants. A Taziya is a dream brought down to Earth, though never grounded, always in procession, always traversing the bounds of time and space.”
Size: 9.25 × 14 inches
Material: Mixed Media (gouache, acrylic pen, stickers, sequins) on cold-press paper
This is the hand-painted original of the “Dreamland Taziya” piece.
If you select “custom framing,” please email me at nabihaiderali@gmail.com to go over framing options.
***
“From the outside, one might mistake the brightly-sequined Taziya—constructed painstakingly with a bamboo frame and materials ranging from cloth, colored paper and wood planks to thermocol, tinsel, and plastic beads—to be too colorful and fantastical against the black backdrop of Muharram season. Is it an expression of joy? No, it is a labor of love crafted by the hands of the masses for whom the physical Karbala is often out of reach. Why then do most Taziyas visually differ from the shrines, even with reference images of the Haramain being plenty in our day and age?
The goal of Taziya-making is not to replicate to a T the appearance of Imam Hussain’s shrine. A Taziya is meant to embody the feeling of awe, the overwhelming beauty one encounters at the door of the Karbalai martyrs, the eternal message of hope and perseverance against all oppression that one takes away and plants in every struggle back home. It is love localized as far as Trinidad, Tobago, and Jamaica, as ancestral memory evolving with every step and winding journey of its spiritual descendants. A Taziya is a dream brought down to Earth, though never grounded, always in procession, always traversing the bounds of time and space.”
