Ali and the Crooked Rib
a documentary
Running Time: 35mins
Genre: Documentary
Format: HD
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Completed: January 2009
Synopsis
‘Ali and the Crooked Rib’ is a documentary exploring the artisticcollaboration between Crooked Rib, and UK-based ‘spiritual’ street artist Mohammed Ali (aka Aerosol Arabic). Mohammed was invited to Melbourne to create a street art mural with Crooked Rib after they expressed an interest in his work.
Background
What does it meant to be young, female and living in Melbourne?
It can mean listening to Lupe Fiasco on your iPod, studying hard, attending extra-curricular Arabic classes, playing soccer, attending an Islamic camp, discussing fashion and art, and above all, sitting on the floor around a table full of food, laughing and talking. Crooked Rib is a group of fourteen young Muslim women who collaborated artistically since November 2007. Initiated by the City of Melbourne’s Community Cultural Development program, Crooked Rib developed an exhibition in collaboration with artist Amanda King
exploring what it means to be young, female and Muslim in Melbourne. The name Crooked Rib references Hawa, the first woman created (known also as Eve) and her “naturally crooked” rib.
According to Muslim tradition, the nature of a crooked rib relates to the creation of Eve and her ultimate function for humanity. Mohammed Ali, a 27 year old British-born Muslim takes his inspiration from the modern urban-art of graffiti and weaves it together with the grace and eloquence of Islamic Arabic calligraphy. With his unique urban-spiritual art, Mohammed has successfully managed to connect people of different communities through his art, with the themes of his artwork exploring the issues that face contemporary, multicultural societies. He has created his public spiritual murals in the streets of major cities around the world including New York, Chicago and Toronto. This documentary is the story of Crooked Rib and Mohammed Ali‘s collaboration on a street art mural in Spark Lane, Melbourne, Australia. On his arrival in Melbourne, Mohammed is confronted by a nine metre high wall, with multiple levels of scaffolding, and a group of young Muslim women whom he has never worked with before and whose graffiti experience is limited to works on canvas. Meeting at Shed 4, in the Docklands, Mohammed and Crooked Rib decide an idea for the wall that will speak to everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, the theme of using water wisely. Testing out their graffiti skills, the group plays around with ideas on lengths of paper on shipping containers.
The final wall in Spark Lane contains the text ‘thirst for change’ and a quote from the prophet Mohammed ‘Do not waste water even before a flowing river’ written in both Arabic and in English. Much to Mohammed’s surprise the wall attracts a lot of attention, drawing crowds to watch them at work even though the lane is tucked away behind buildings now inhabited by galleries and hotels, but once the busy hub
of Melbourne’s rag trade. During his residency in Melbourne, Mohammed also creates street art murals with young people in Broadmeadows, a culturally diverse suburb 17km North of Melbourne’s CBD and Victoria University located in Footscray in Melbourne’s western suburbs. Located outside a Woman’s Centre, his mural at Victoria University contains the message ‘Knowledge - Educating a woman, is educating a nation’.
Since his return to the UK, Mohammed has won the prestigious South Bank Show Diversity Award and continues to create street art projects around the world. He has recently completed street art murals dedicated to the people of Gaza. Crooked Rib and Aerosol Arabic’s street artwork can still be seen in Spark Lane,
Melbourne, Australia.
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