Jeddah’s 'Al Attarin' Street...History from Artistic Perspective

Papers from the 'Roaming Walls' art work displayed at the Amaken Exhibition at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) - Asharq Al-Awsat
Papers from the 'Roaming Walls' art work displayed at the Amaken Exhibition at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) - Asharq Al-Awsat
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Jeddah’s 'Al Attarin' Street...History from Artistic Perspective

Papers from the 'Roaming Walls' art work displayed at the Amaken Exhibition at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) - Asharq Al-Awsat
Papers from the 'Roaming Walls' art work displayed at the Amaken Exhibition at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) - Asharq Al-Awsat

Saudi artist Asma Bahmim takes part in the Amaken Exhibition held at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) with her special work “Roaming Walls,” which depicts scenes from her childhood in the heart of Jeddah.

“Long time ago, people in Hejaz used to put papers that feature Quran verses and holy texts inside walls’ cracks in respect of the words written on them. They also used to hide love letters inside the walls, which had long caught my attention as a kid in Al Attarin street,” she told Asharq Al-Awsat.

About the idea, she said: “I thought I knew myself through time, but I discovered that my knowledge was formed of scattered memory pieces that assembled with past events that took place in my hometown. My idea is inspired from the house I was born in, its walls that are filled with my dreams, thoughts, and scraps featuring verses from our holy book that were folded and preserved between stones’ cracks. That collection of successive pictures in my head has long provided me with balance.”

In her work, the Saudi artist focuses on the tradition of placing papers between the cracks of walls, and bricks. Bahmim noticed this tradition for the first time when she was visiting her aunt’s house in the historic region, which motivated her to document it in a work inspired by her spatial memory.

- Al Attarin Street -

Asma Bahmim holds a lot of memories from Al Attarin street. “I know all the places there, and I remember many prominent figures that I used to see in that street, where I studied in a language institute. All these things engraved the street in my memory,” she explained.

The artist took advantage of the demolition of the random properties in that region to collect ancient stones, which she used as a major part in her newest artwork “Roaming Walls” made of wastes of construction materials from the historic region of Jeddah, including pieces of bleached coral, stones, and wood.

- Paper making -

Interestingly, Bahmim has long worked in handmade paper. She makes her own papers using banana leaves she dries on the roof of her house, and color them with natural dyes. When asked about the craft, she said her mother used palm leaves in paper making, like a lot of people did at the time.

“Paper making in Hejaz is almost extinct, but I am trying to keep it alive using banana leaves, and I hope to expand it, but the project requires large potentials.”

Bahmim’s works reflect her interest in Islamic arts, such as medieval manuscripts including ‘Maqamat Al Hariri’ and the Panchatantra stories. Her project consists of collecting paper scraps to build a wall with cracks in which she plans to put her personal letters with hand-written words or gold papers.

Asma Bahamim was born in Jeddah, 1979, and studied fine arts at the Jeddah University, where she currently works as a professor. She also partook in the 2018 Islamic Art Festival in Sharjah.



How Did a Jet Flip Upside Down on a Toronto Runway and Everyone Survive?

A Delta Air Lines plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport is seen on February 18, 2025 in Toronto, Canada. (Getty Images/AFP)
A Delta Air Lines plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport is seen on February 18, 2025 in Toronto, Canada. (Getty Images/AFP)
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How Did a Jet Flip Upside Down on a Toronto Runway and Everyone Survive?

A Delta Air Lines plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport is seen on February 18, 2025 in Toronto, Canada. (Getty Images/AFP)
A Delta Air Lines plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport is seen on February 18, 2025 in Toronto, Canada. (Getty Images/AFP)

Investigators are probing the causes of an unusual plane crash at Canada's largest airport on Monday, when a regional jet flipped upside down upon landing during windy weather, sending 21 of the 80 people on board to hospital.

Video shows the Delta Air Lines plane belly up and missing its right wing at Toronto's Pearson Airport, and of the crash that involved no fatalities, circulated widely on social media. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said on Tuesday that parts of the plane -- a Bombardier-made CRJ900 -- separated after impact and the fuselage came to rest slightly off the right side of the runway, upside down, facing the other direction.

The TSB said it is too early to know what happened and why. Here is what we know about this accident and similar crashes.

HOW DOES A PLANE LAND UPSIDE DOWN?

US aviation safety expert Anthony Brickhouse said aircraft are normally designed to land first on the two main landing gear, and then the nose gear. While the cause of the accident is unclear, the type of impact on the runway likely damaged the landing gear, leaving the plane imbalanced.

Brickhouse said that the plane ending up pointing in the opposite direction speaks to the amount of force and speed that led it to change direction.

"With all the forces and everything going on, if that wing is not there to support the aircraft it's going to go over," Brickhouse said. "It's not something that we see regularly, but when structures start failing, they can't do their job and the aircraft is going to react to the different forces on it."

HOW DID EVERYONE SURVIVE?

Passengers say they were hanging upside down in their seats after the crash.

"All of the passengers were wearing the safety belts. This prevented more serious injuries from occurring," said Mitchell Fox, director of the Asia Pacific Center for Aviation Safety.

Airplane seats are designed to withstand the force of 16 times the normal pull of gravity, or 16Gs, in a crash, whereas wings and fuselage are designed to handle 3-5Gs.

"In an impact-survivable crash, it's more important for the seats to hold up, giving passengers the best chance of survival," said Raj Ladani, a program manager for aerospace engineering at Australia's RMIT University. Good evacuation is key to air accident survivability, as witnessed last year when all 379 people escaped a burning Japan Airlines plane after a runway collision.

"The crew did a remarkable job of evacuating all of the passengers expeditiously," Fox said of the Delta crash.

HAS THIS HAPPENED BEFORE?

While rare, there have been cases of large jets flipping over on landing, including three accidents involving McDonnell Douglas' MD-11 model.

In 2009, a FedEx freighter turned over on landing in windy conditions on the runway at Tokyo's Narita airport, killing both pilots. The left wing was broken and separated from the fuselage attaching point and the airplane caught fire.

In 1999, a China Airlines flight inverted at Hong Kong while landing during a typhoon. The plane touched down hard, flipped over and caught fire, killing three of 315 occupants.

In 1997, another FedEx freighter flipped over at Newark in the United States, with no fatalities.

Brickhouse said it is too early to draw any conclusions from these earlier cases, especially as the MD-11 is a three-engine aircraft and the CRJ900 has two engines mounted toward the back of the aircraft, producing different flight dynamics.

HOW WILL THE INVESTIGATION PROCEED?

Unlike other investigations in which parts of the plane have gone missing, and there are mass fatalities, investigators will be able to interview all 76 passengers and four crew.

Investigators have access to the fuselage and wing, which are on the runway, and the black boxes -- the flight data and cockpit voice recorders -- have been sent for analysis.

"This is going to be a textbook investigation," Brickhouse said. "Some accidents, a lot of the pieces of the puzzle are missing. But right now looking at this accident, all the puzzle pieces are there. It's just you piecing them back together at this point."