Friday 19 / April / 2024
Muscat: Muscat’s newest cultural attraction, the National Museum opened its doors only last week and registered over 1,700 visitors in the first four days.
We bring you some of the amazing and talented Omanis, who were involved in making this dream project a reality.
Jamal Al Moosawi
Al Moosawi has been the acting director general of the National Museum since late 2015; he had earlier held the role of the National Museum Project Director since January 2010.
He is a graduate of the Edinburgh College of Art and holds a Masters Degree in Visual Communication and Cultural Studies. He was previously appointed as the Arts Project Manager Oman by the British Council in January 2005 and was later promoted to the position of Regional Arts Projects Manager for the Middle East at the British Council and also held the position of a museum curator of the Modern Arab Art Museum of the Qatar Foundation in Doha.
Born in Moscow and of Omani-Belarussian parentage, he enjoys reading, travelling and exploring new cultures, and cooking.
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Sayyida Nada Fakhri Al Said
Al Said is a culture and heritage specialist at the National Museum and plays the multiple roles of museum development, design and external relations. She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Design from the University of West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom and later worked as a freelance graphic designer in Australia and Oman before joining the National Museum team two and a half years ago as an exhibition designer.
She currently advises on the design progress of the museum and is also the head of the External Relations Unit, where she enjoys creating strong relationships with other organisations, building capacity for the museum team, engaging in community outreach and creating awareness about the museum’s achievements in culture and heritage preservation, both nationally and internationally.
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Waleed bin Omar bin Saud Al Nadabi
Al Nadabi joined the National Museum in 2011 and currently serves as the head of registration unit. His role is to inventory the collections and document all its text and non-text information in a digital database. He also takes care of the objects’ movement inside the museum and manages deliveries of artefacts.
He graduated from the Sultan Qaboos University with Bachelor’s degree in History and Archaeology and later worked as a research assistant with the Oman Encyclopaedia Project before moving on to become the in-charge of collections and research at the Bait Al Zubair Museum.
He wants the museum to not only link this generation to their past, but also to inspire them by looking at the most important artefacts of Oman.
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Zahra Hassan Abdul Khaliq Al Lawati
Al Lawati heads the Learning Centre at the National Museum. Her responsibilities include supervising the learning team and designing a learning policy and detailed activity programme for the museum’s Learning Centre. She is also responsible for the smooth running and upkeep of the centre, including booking of rooms and visits, allocation of digital equipment, and maintaining art and teaching materials.
With a background in Art Education, she worked as an Arts teacher (grade 11 and 12) for six years, which was followed by completing a Masters degree in Arts Administration and Cultural Policy at Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Al Lawati is proud of being part of a very talented and motivated team at the museum and said the learning programmes will support the mission of the Museum by raising public awareness about the importance of Oman’s cultural heritage and will encourage young generations to take an interest in Oman’s history.
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Moza Sulaiman Al Wardi
Al Wardi is the head of Study and Research at the museum and joined in 2009, her responsibilities include collection interpretation and selecting objects for display, acquisitions (local and international), working with the exhibition designer, publication team, education department and the conservation team.
She holds a Bachelors degree on Heritage and Culture Studies from Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia.
According to Al Wardi, being part of this project for six years, she has seen the development of the project and calls the museum her second home.
Khoulabint Saif Al Wahabi
Al Wahabi is currently the head of the Conservation Unit, whose responsibility is to carefully observe the showcases and make decisions with respect to conservation and preservation, acquisitions and maintenance by overseeing the development of the scientific database, supervision of laboratories, among other tasks.
She graduated from the Sultan Qaboos University with a Bachelor’s degree in Archaeology and worked for the Ministry of Heritage and Culture in 2004 for the following projects—the Omani Heritage Museum, the Sayyid Faisal Bin Ali Museum and the National Museum. She is happy because her current job gives her the opportunity to deal directly with very rare and valuable artefacts.
Shurooq Mohammed Jawad Najwani
Najwani currently heads the Publication Unit at the National Museum and is also a translator. She established the annual programme of the unit and organises the Museography delivery process in terms of translation, editing, preparing a guideline for all specific terminology used in the museum among other tasks.
She has a Bachelors’ degree in Translation from the Sultan Qaboos University and has been working at the museum for four and a half years. She previously worked with the Omani Encyclopaedia Project for three years as a translator. She wants the next generation to be proud of being an Omani, their ancestry, history, culture, heritage and tradition.
