Nur Aida Abdul Rahim and Saeed Abdlkarim Arida
aida@mit.edu
Aida Abdul-Rahim and Saeed Arida currently are graduate students at MIT in
the Mechanical
Engineering and Architecture departments respectively. Aida was instrumental
in creating the
class “Pathways to Peace” at MIT, in which the students designed
tiles, devoted to peace,
using a waterjet cutter.
“Our tile represents Syria, a truly diverse country in terms of history,
culture and tradition. Two images are
superimposed and etched on the clear top layer. The first one is 'Shaam' written
in Arabic cursive
characters, which is the old name for Syria; the other is a picture of the
iconic Umayyad Mosque which
holds an important historical significance. The middle layer which is made
of colorful formica of various
shapes represents the historical depth and diversity of the country. No two
tiles that we made have the
same formica layout. This is an indication of how different people view and
interpret Syria's history
differently even though the 'facts' are the same.”
