Projects

Art Project SeeLight – May 2024 – December 2024

From May to December 2024, Artistic Director Masoud Rahaee developed the concept for an art project as part of the Festival of Light 2024 at Museumpark Orientalis.

The project, titled SeeLight, was a collaborative initiative between HAN University of Applied Sciences, Museumpark Orientalis, and Stichting ElanArt.

Masoud drew inspiration from “The Conference of the Birds”, a 13th-century Persian poem by Attar.

In this story, birds from distant and unfamiliar lands carry within their hearts the hope for wisdom, beauty, and radiant light. They believe they will find these virtues in their sacred king, the SeeMurgh. Without him, they think, life has no meaning. Together they embark on a journey through seven mysterious valleys, seeking their exalted leader.

In SeeLight, ElanArt translated these seven valleys into a visual and spatial experience, allowing visitors to undertake the same symbolic journey. At the end of their voyage, they arrive at the palace of the SeeMurgh, only to discover that the king they have been searching for is nothing other than their own reflection. They realize that the wisdom, beauty, and light they sought were within themselves all along.Since September 2024, ElanArt, together with newcomers from various asylum centers (AZCs), and students and teachers from HAN University of Applied Sciences, have worked daily on developing the art route.

Their collective dedication and enthusiasm made the creation process itself a living expression of the project’s essence, connection through shared imagination.

**Art Project Reflection | November & December 2023**

Commissioned by Museumpark Oriëntalis

In 2023, I was invited to develop an art project in collaboration with Museumpark Orientalis, bringing together young people from various asylum centers (AZCs) with students from the HAN University of Applied Sciences, ROC Nijmegen, and the International Transition Class (ISK).

The project added a mystical dimension to the Arabic Village of Museumpark Orientalis, a visual translation in which the tale of 1001 Nights appeared to unfold like a Persian carpet reflected upon the water.

Persian Carpet as Inspiration
A carpet begins with one small, fragile knot. To that single knot, millions of others are tied, together forming a strong, unique unity. So too the people who took part in this project: each individually delicate, yet collectively weaving a vibrant pattern of connection and strength.

A special element of Reflection was the use of pruned branches and natural waste from the grounds of Museumpark Orientalis.
These organic materials were given a second life as the building blocks of the artwork, a symbolic gesture expressing how transformation, reuse, and collaboration can merge into one poetic act of renewal.

Nobel Path of Peace

Commissioned by Museumpark Oriëntalis

A walk among the voices of humanity.

Through the hills of Museumpark Orientalis winds the Nobel Path of Peace a quiet tribute to those who dared the impossible:
to build peace among people.

Each step brings you closer to words that once shook the world: the hope of Martin Luther King, the courage of Malala Yousafzai, the moral force of Andrei Sakharov, the smile of Desmond Tutu, the wisdom of Tobias Asser.

Their words form a chorus of humanity a mirror for the one who walks. The path asks for no judgment, only attention: what does peace mean, and what does it ask of us?

Officially opened in 2015, yet each footprint reopens it anew.

Strenger 4ever

A journey of identity, attachment, and release.

Graduation project at ArtEZ University of the Arts

My integration into Dutch culture has made me a stranger in my own. Once a foreigner, forever a foreigner.

The path of the stranger is one of imbalance each step meets the forces of the outside world. Is it the name that provokes resistance, or the path itself?

Material:
Velcro two opposites clinging together.
They hold fast; unity through friction.
To pull them apart takes strength one resists, the other screams.

Design:
A field of tension between belonging and breaking away. One can fasten oneself to the path, or search for new directions, feeling and hearing resistance as part of the experience.

Form:
Inspired by carpets from Shiraz.
Vertical and horizontal lines weave into twin diamonds at the center. A structure that can be read both vertically and horizontally a meeting of patterns and perspectives.

Shoelaces:
Made of Velcro.
To engage with the carpet, one must bind them around the shoes to literally become part of the work.

Move Your World

Exhibition, The Melkweg, Amsterdam, 2002
Commissioned by the Ministry of Immigration Affairs.

An invitation to motion to shift worlds within and around you. Migration as both a physical and emotional journey: the movement between adaptation and authenticity, between origin and becoming.

Dog Toilet, Project Kanaaleiland, Utrecht

A commission by the City of Utrecht

A mirror of integration.

A neighborhood alive with youth, and friction.
Eighty percent of its green spaces are devoted to dog toilets, while eighty percent of its residents are Muslim.

In the West, the dog is a friend, a companion, a surrogate child, even an heir to one’s affection and estate.

In Islamic tradition, the dog itself is not impure, but its saliva requires cleansing before prayer. Cleanliness is devotion and so the dog stays mostly outside the home.

Two worlds, one neighborhood.
A small urban landscape that exposes a vast cultural gap a symptom of misunderstanding, and the absence of true dialogue.

Integration: the act of merging two parts into one whole. Perhaps it begins not with blending, but with listening.

Dia Projector

Project Kanaaleiland

A circular saw as medium raw, sharp, unfinished. Made not to decorate, but to cut.

Dia Projector was born from the reality of Kanaaleiland in Utrecht, where integration met its own barriers. The saw became a symbol of that boundary, between understanding and indifference, between “us” and “them.”To connect, we must dare to saw: through the wood of habit, the walls of prejudice, the layers of fear.

Killing Nature, Creating Picture

A commission by the City of Veluwe

We build nature as if it were a stage set.
We place benches, paths, deer, silence.
But what is nature once it has been designed?

This installation questions our very definition of the natural. We kill nature in order to represent her.Nature is not a place, but a relationship. Do not change the landscape, change the meaning you give to it.

Sauna

Sauna (maquette)

Model of a transparent world. A glass sphere filled with mist, with three slides spiraling outward. A space where condensation and shadow meet, where inside and outside dissolve into one another. The Sauna reflects my desire to design a building that interacts with its surroundings a living structure that responds, reflects, and moves. It embodies the idea of motion made visible, where architecture and atmosphere become one continuous flow. The sauna as a sensory mirror: perspiration, transformation, transparency.