Family Amusement Day highlights OPUS 5 and traditional perfumes

In its ongoing efforts to enrich public knowledge of the arts, the Department of Education and Interpretation at Sharjah Museums Department SMD has recently organized an art workshop as part of its Family Amusement Day, to highlight the OPUS 5 exhibition hosted at the Sharjah Art Museum.

The OPUS 5 Exhibition is organized by the College of Architecture, Art and Design at the American University of Sharjah in collaboration with Sharjah Museums Department.

The art workshop titled " Your Artistic Album ", gave the participating families a chance to tour the Opus 5 exhibition where they learnt how to make albums and decorate their own photography with help from education specialists. The participants also learnt about the basic principles of drawing inspired by the works exhibited at OPUS 5 exhibition. At the end of the workshop, children were given the albums they made themselves with their beautiful pictures in.

A very special workshop titled "Your Perfume" was held on Saturday, 9 June, at Bait Al Naboodah where participants learnt how to make natural perfumes using items and substances from nature to create beautiful fragrances. The participants were also shown traditional perfume bottles used by the UAE in the past, such as  spray tools and burners with their beautiful shapes and decorations, and were exposed to the smells of authentic traditional scents, such as Oud , Bukhoor, musk, amber and other perfumes that were commonly used in the past in the region.

The participants also had the opportunity, through the collections at Bait Al Naboodah, to get a glimpse of the traditions, living arrangements and means of transportation that was prevalent in the UAE’s past.

They then headed to the Sharjah Archeology Museum where they were shown a huge burner decorated with statutes, which is believed to be imported from Pakistan. The burner was found in Muleiha and represents the importance of Bukhoor in the past.

At the end of the tour, the participants made their own favorite perfumes using the knowledge they had gained about the proper methods and tools for making and storing perfumes. The  Department of Education and Interpretation also organized a number of weekly family workshops covering Islamic, heritage and art themes, apart from workshops dedicated to sea related topics.

A special workshop, titled "Shoreline Shapes" is scheduled to be held next Saturday, 16 June, during which a team of specialists at the Sharjah Aquarium will give participants an insight into the world of the seas to help them learn more about the importance of marine life, the aesthetics of sea creatures and the proper environment for marine organisms.

The participants will also get the chance to feed fish at the Aquarium and then decorate ceramic fish, make their own aquarium, and finally to put the fish they decorated in the aquarium, with help from education specialists.

The Department said more workshops would be held at the Sharjah Aquarium and other museums with the aim of creating strong bonds to connect younger generations with their past, glorious history and heritage through museums and their historical collections.