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2009 Root/Route Patterns of Sharjah

My project for the biennial is broad and in four parts, one of which is a long and narrow footpath from the entrance of the museum to the Persian spice market along the Corniche harbor where colorful wooden boats from Iran load and unload provisions. The indoor pieces combine three installation related to the footpath and the particular history of Sharjah in the general context of the Arabian Gulf. The three segments punctuate a path between them. These include an installation of geological findings nestled in the bridge windows and relates them to Arab patterns, a large free-standing ariel map of Sharjah with painted patterns dominates an open lobby-like space, and finally, a video animation about pearl divers with imbedded quotations from the 1971 Kuwaiti film "Bas Ya Bahr" or "Enough, Cruel Sea," with a spinning candelabra - all viewed as a light show from behind an Islamic patterned wall.

Doris Bittar is one of two artists featured in the Arab American Yearbook
& the Encyclopedia of Arab American Artists 2007-2008

Qisas Al Finjan: Coffee Stories
Video "Our Mothers Taught Us How to Embroider"

Athenaeum Music and Arts Library , La Jolla, California, February 16 - March 22, 2008
"Coffee Stories" entails photographs and wall paintings with text to an animation and performance. One of the featured stories is about Abou Mousa, a mihbash player in the Nahr Al Barad Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. A mihbash is a mortar and pestle with an enclosed base to grind coffee in. While grinding coffee, it becomes a percussion instrument that fills the air with rhythmical sound and the scent of coffee. The installation photos below show a pattern painted onto the wall that continues onto the floor as a drawing made of coffee grounds. The still photograph superimposes an image of the giant waterwheels along the Assi River in Hama, Syria onto the patterned and elaborate coffee silt that remains in the cup.

Soap Story, Khaldiyeh's River Rocks and Selections from Stripes & Stars
Ninapi Gallery, Ravenna, Italy, March 22, 2008- June 2008
When I went to Italy last summer I began a new and unexpected installation that required the opening to be delayed until March 22, 2008. The installation specifically explores the relationships between Ravenna, its role in Italy's history with that of Syria/Lebanon/Palestine's synthesis of Roman and Byzantine culture.

Puffin Grant Recipient 2007
for Khaldiyeh's River Rocks and Other Stories of Resistance 2007

2007 Under The Staircase with Tante Muna

Stripes & Stars
Frank Pictures Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, California, October 14- November 14, 2007

Khaldiyeh's River Rock Story
Jerusalem Fund Gallery in Washington, DC March 16 -April 27, 2007

2007 A Muslim and Christian Sea Glass Story, Beirut 2005

Jusour wa Kusour: A Bridge and a Chasm, The Work of Doris Bittar, 1989-2007
Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, California, February 11 - April 1, 2007

Uncle Hanna's Electric Heart,
Southwestern College, Chula Vista, California, October 10 - November 11, 2006