1. Sweet
City
Sculpther
By:
a
Gita
Meh

2. Sweet
City
In
the
name
of
God
who
created
the
sweet-­‐taste
and
gave
it
life.
This
world
is
created
out
of
Love.
Made
out
of
sweetness
of
God.
Sweetness
is
the
way
home
to
Allah.
He
did
not
want
it
any
other
way.
The
inner
and
outer
space
is
a
sweet
taste
Allah
created
for
us.
TransliteraCon
from
Rumi
by:
Gita
Meh
Born
in
Tehran,
Iran
in
1963,
she
lives
and
works
in
Dubai,
UAE
In
1979
the
Islamic
RevoluCon
marked
for
me
the
beginning
of
a
new
avant-­‐garde
forms
of
visual
expression
in
Iran.
It
was
in
1983
during
Iran
Iraq
war
that
my
parents
had
to
migrate
to
the
West,
where
I
conCnued
to
study
and
pursuit
art.
My
ongoing
body
of
work
deconstructs
my
Middle
Eastern
and
Western
cultures
as
I
reconstruct
and
reinforce
the
best
of
both
tradiCons.
My
work
promotes
mulCculturalism
by
using
visual
and
wriTen
languages
as
tools
to
form
a
space
of
human
interacCon
and
cultural
integraCon.
I
draw
from
my
personal
history
and
its
implicaCons
in
modern
Middle
Eastern
society
to
reconstruct
the
noCon
of
Islamic/Middle
Eastern
art
through
conceptual
art.
I
examine
how
idenCty
is
shaped
by
differences
in
language,
gender,
ethnicity
and
culture,
desire,
exile,
solitude
and
freedom.
I
allow
each
spectator
to
re-­‐create
his
or
her
own
experience
of
my
created
cross-­‐cultural
spaces.
My
art
adds
a
new
substance
to
mulCculturalism,
giving
advancement
to
the
nearing
of
cultural
differences
between
East
and
the
West.
My
work
introduces
a
dialog
that
criCques
the
human
form,
human
word
and
the
human
home.
My
art
speaks
about
distribuCons
of
cultures.
I
take
the
iniCaCve
using
my
cross-­‐cultural
resources
to
achieve
a
broader
form
of
integraCon.
My
work
creates
visual
thinking.
I
understand
my
iniCal
impulse
to
form
and
word.
I
work
on
diverse
canvases
of
textural
material.
Female
bodies
transfigure
from
nude
to
veiled
into
Alphabeta.
Woman’s
removed
body
hair
becomes
surrounding
walls.
Onions
become
an
abundance
of
nourishing
breasts.
GliTer
is
brushed
as
if
paint.
Scanner
becomes
my
digital
camera.
Sugar
becomes
a
projecCon
screen
as
images
melt.
Hand
painted
fountain
Cles
become
architectural
facades.
Persian
carpets
become
my
white
canvas.
Painted
laptops
convert
to
flying
carpets.
Koranic
verse
becomes
running
horses.
Fresh
apples
become
painCngs
and
hang
from
the
ceiling
Cll
they
disintegrate
in
Cme.
I
fire
clay
homes
to
build
my
own
ciCes.
And
food
becomes
digesCble
art.
As
I
express
my
visual
vocabulary
in
a
desire
to
point
dot
by
dot
to
contemporary
Islam
and
the
wild
West
in
this
present.

4. Sweet
City
200
cm
height
200
cm
width
124
cm
mosque

13. FUTURE
PROJECT
INSTALLATION
DRWAING

15. Gita
Meh:
Sweet
City
Sweet
City
is
a
sculpther
that
consists
of
a
main
building,
the
mosque,
where
Muslims
go
for
worship,
and
two
tall
high-­‐rises,
where
people
reside.
The
towers
are
aTached
to
each
side
of
the
mosque,
in
place
of
the
minarets
from
which
the
muezzin
calls
the
people
to
prayer.
Sweet
City
is
made
of
nabat,
or
spun
rock
candy.
Nabat
to
Iranians
is
the
grape-­‐like
bouquet
of
translucent
shapes
crystallized
around
a
twine,
having
the
look
and
feel
of
hard
candy.
Nabat
results
from
the
process
of
crystallizing
sugar
with
a
touch
of
saffron
used
for
flavoring,
perfuming
and
coloring
the
sugar
to
a
bright
orange-­‐yellow
color.
Islam
is
constantly
in
a
process
of
modernizaCon
and
adapCon.
That
ability
to
adapt
and
update
is
embodied
in
the
evoluCon
of
Islamic
architecture.
Islam
changes
from
one
architecture
to
another,
but
does
not
change
from
one
God
to
another.
Sweet
City
is
the
study
of
the
source
of
“Sweet
God,”
Allah.
This
installaCon
depicts
how
Islam
is
even
now
in
the
rapid
process
of
modernizaCon,
and
how
this
process
progresses
towards
forming
and
meaning
the
sweetness
that
God
promises.
This
sculpther
represents
the
evoluCon
of
Islam
and
its
contemporary
ciCes
with
their
contrasCng
landscape
of
mosques
and
high-­‐rises,
poinCng
ulCmately
to
the
ownership
of
land
not
by
people
but
by
God.
In
the
end,
the
mosque,
with
its
visual
and
religious
funcCon,
becomes
the
only
architectural
presence
that
inherently
disCnguishes
the
Islamic
city
and
its
lived
culture
from
Western
ciCes.
The
process
of
nabat
becomes
the
analyCcal
symbol
direcCng
us
even
beyond
the
Islamic
city,
toward
a
parCcular
aim
of
Islam.
Using
nabat
to
“build”
a
mosque
embodies
change
and
points
to
future
development
towards
the
promised
paradise
on
earth.
Nabat
in
this
context
is
the
visible
embodiment
of
evoluCon
according
to
Islam.
The
use
of
nabat
here
is
as
a
cultural
symbol
with
a
historical
foundaCon,
comprising
a
ritual
that
represents
the
Quranic
promise.
In
Sweet
City
you
see
inside
from
outside
and
outside
from
inside.
In
the
mosque
structure
the
two
minarets
have
become
two
high-­‐rises.
The
structure
becomes
what
Muslim
ciCes
are
becoming:
contemporary.
The
minarets,
aher
all,
sCll
call
people
to
the
sweetness
Allah
has
planned
for
us,
even
as
they
take
on
the
look
and
funcCon
of
our
age.
People
go
home
to
rest
in
such
high-­‐rises;
their
souls
go
to
the
mosque
to
rest.
Here,
both
resCng
places
are
envisioned
as
made
out
of
sugar
–
nabat
–
in
order
to
embody
the
sweetness
into
which
Allah
calls
us,
body
and
soul.
These
are
the
minarets
of
new
Islamic
civilizaCon.
At
the
heart
of
rapidly
modernizing
Muslim
ciCes
Sweet
City
finds
a
sweet
Islam
also
in
the
process
of
modernizaCon,
a
21st-­‐century
Islam
bringing
together
the
sweetness
of
all
civilizaCons
from
West
to
East.
Dubai,
for
instance,
is
an
Islamic
meeCng
place
for
all
cultures,
where
Islam
sees
the
purpose
of
life
in
sweetness
of
acCon
towards
others
–
construcCve
Islam
constructed
in
search
of
the
sweetness
of
Islam.
UlCmately,
Sweet
City
is
the
next
step,
toward
heaven
itself,
where
life
and
God
become
one.

17. CURATORIAL
STATEMENT
Peter
Frank:
Sweet
City
Sweet
City
is
a
sculpther
conceived
and
fabricated
by
Gita
Meh,
an
arCst
currently
living
in
Dubai
who
was
born
and
raised
in
Teheran
and
has
lived,
studied
and
worked
in
several
European
countries
and
the
United
States.
Meh
works
in
a
variety
of
media,
from
painCng
to
installaCon,
sculpther
to
poetry,
photography
to
performance;
in
her
aTempt
to
touch
all
aspects
of
sensaCon
and
intellect
in
her
viewers,
she
has
ohen
involved
herself
with
food
preparaCon
and
ritual,
thus
engaging
taste,
smell,
and
touch
as
well
as
sound
and
sight.
Sweet
City
follows
in
this
vein.
In
Sweet
City
Meh
draws
from
her
Muslim
heritage
to
envision
Islam
at
once
as
a
modern
–
modernized
and
modernizing
–
force
and
as
a
transcendent
enCty,
an
evoluCon
towards
a
goal
and
the
goal
itself.
By
fabricaCng
a
mosque
out
of
spun
sugar
–
the
nabat
prized
especially
by
Iranians
–
Meh
establishes
a
readily
comprehendable
metaphor
based
on
the
trope
of
spiritual
sweetness.
The
tacClity
as
well
as
aroma
of
the
nabat
are
immediate
and
unavoidable,
speaking
to
atavisCc
levels
of
our
awareness.
The
sculpture
is
more
than
a
mere
sculptural
object
or
spaCal
construcCon;
even
without
tasCng
it,
Sweet
City
is
a
sensual
experience.
By
replacing
the
mosque’s
tradiConal
minarets
with
residenCal
skyscrapers
of
the
kind
that
now
dot
so
many
large
ciCes
throughout
Islam,
Meh
establishes
another
easily
read,
but
this
Cme
not
easily
comprehended,
metaphor
–
one
that,
in
the
wake
of
post-­‐modernist
cynicism
and
anC-­‐modernist
retrenchment,
effecCvely
reclaims
the
teleological,
even
utopian,
drive
of
Modernism
for
Islam
(which
in
its
heyday
was
the
world’s
modernizing
force)
without
a
change
in
tenet.
(As
Meh
writes,
“Islam
changes
from
one
architecture
to
another,
but
does
not
change
from
one
God
to
another.”)
She
regards
the
vigorous
urbanizing
of
centers
such
as
Dubai
as
a
signal
that
Islam
is,
among
other
things,
a
contemporary
discourse,
a
context
for
improving
the
quality
of
daily
life
materially
as
well
as
spiritually.
UlCmately,
Meh’s
conflaCon
of
the
contemporary
and
the
Cmeless,
the
material
and
the
transcendent,
represents
the
conflaCon
of
the
material
and
the
spiritual
and
asserts
the
possibility
of
a
paradise
that
does
not
so
much
contrast
with
quoCdian
misery
as
grow
out
of
the
more
limited
but
sCll
sweet
pleasure
of
the
everyday.
The
present
is
not
enough,
Meh
infers,
but
through
both
devoCon
(the
mosque)
and
responsivity
to
ordinary
pleasures
(the
nabat)
the
path
to
paradise
can
be
discerned.
Each
of
the
high-­‐rises
stands
at
2
meters
high
on
each
side
of
the
mosque.
The
mosque
structure
stands
at
1.24
meters
high,
has
an
arched
entranceway
cresCng
at
65cm
and
a
diameter
of
1
meters.