Qatar Islamic Cultural Center (Fanar) is set to create a Guinness world record for the biggest ever marbled paper on coming Friday as part of the Fanar Expo 2009.
Addressing a press conference yesterday, Fanar director general Mohamed bin Ali al-Ghamedi said that the attempt to enter the Guinness record through paper marbling seeks to showcase the richness and diversity of the Islamic culture through the marbled paper (painting on water). The expo will open on Thursday.
“Paper marbling is an Islamic art that existed among Turks, Persians and in the neighbouring region. We want to convey a message to non-Muslims that Islamic culture is not only worship or mosque-going practice. It is more diverse than that,” al-Ghamedi said.
“This is the first time that paper marbling, or Ebru as it is known in Turkey, will be part of the Guinness record book,” he added.
According to the director general, Fanar will be setting the record through the Ebru Turkish artist, Ahmed Tchoktan, who “will be using purely environment friendly colours made from plants and stones to make his painting.”
The painting process, which will be supervised by judges from Guinness World Records, will start on Friday at 3pm.
To marble paper, Ahmed Tchoktan will fill a tray with water and then drop pigments or paints into it.
He will be manipulating it with brushes or straws to create a feathery, swirling pattern.
Then a piece of strong paper is gently laid on top of the water and then smoothly lifted so that the pattern of pigment is transferred to the paper.
The end result is a distinct print which can never be repeated.
After careful drying, the marbled paper can be used in any number of places including the endpapers of books which are commonly made with marbled paper.
Abdul Salam al-Faihan, project manager at the Guinness World Records office in Doha, said the biggest marbled paper record would be a new record since no record were previously registered with the Guinness World Records.
“It took Fanar much effort to meet all the requirements needed for creating a new record with us,” al-Faihan said, while observing that the marbled paper would be most important to be registered in Qatar.
Al-Faihan also announced that a village will be also set up on the sidelines of the Fanar expo where residents can participate in records breaking competitions.
“We have selected four records to compete for. We call them young records as they are mainly for children and other family members,” he said.
Competitions for other records will include computer typing speed, push-up exercise, and special records for children including eating an apple or a pizza.
“We are very keen that the selected records would be in harmony with the culture of the region,” he said, adding that those who would be able to break records would be awarded by
Fanar.
“I promise that all our visitors will be given gifts. We hope that everybody visit us spend a good time and feel happy,” he added. |
