ART EVENT E17 Art Trail Commissioned Zarah Hussain to Create a Large-scale Outdoor Animation Projection

E17 Art Trail, one of Europe’s foremost open-access visual arts festivals commissioned an award-winning Waltham Forest artist, Zarah Hussain. On the evening of Saturday 26 July Hussain’s 'Magic Carpet' animated projection fleetingly covered the external facade of William Morris Gallery at sunset, celebrating Chaand Raat or ‘the Night of New Moon’ on the eve of Eid al-Fitr and end of Ramadan as part of the Walthamstow Garden Party in Lloyd Park, Walthamstow, London E17.

'Magic Carpet' expresses William Morris’ love and admiration of the Islamic carpet through a site specific installation, which ‘carpets’ the gallery exterior with a mesmerising projection based on traditional Islamic geometric patterns. Morris was fascinated in the patterns, colours and production of carpets and was a great admirer of Persian and eastern carpets. Artist, Zarah Hussain, who has spent many years perfecting the traditional techniques used to create mathematical geometric art and adapting them to create works with a contemporary resonance, has created a projected animation that blends the two worlds of the traditional and contemporary.

Islamic geometric design has been transformed into a visually stunning piece of contemporary art which has ever-changing colours and movement. The projection was realised using cutting edge technology with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GSMD) having pre-release access to the much anticipated Isadora 2.0 Live Performance Tool: a new software tool for manipulating video at live performance events.

'Magic Carpet' animated projection by Zarah Hussain / Photo credit: Create London

'Magic Carpet' animated projection by Zarah Hussain / Photo credit: Create London

'Magic Carpet' animated projection by Zarah Hussain / Photo credit: Create London

'Magic Carpet' animated projection by Zarah Hussain / Photo credit: Create London