It all started with John! Busby as he is known around Benga Designs.
He collaborated with Urban Art on an art mural at the Brisbane Airport in 2015. From this collaboration came the opportunity to work on the Abu Dhabi Art Installation being designed and installed by Urban Art as part of the Martyrs’ Memorial Park.
John meticulously produced 80 rubber sandblasting masks of calligraphy, to adorn sand blasted panels ranging in size from 2m x to 23m in height. These panels or masks were a critical key in creating 31 overpowering sand blasted molten aluminium panels leaning on one another and engraved with Arabic calligraphy. The structure is to represent unity and solidarity, and immortalises the memory of the fallen heroes of the UAE.
Plotter vinyl cutting when manufacturing a large run, risks stepping in production. This slight variance within the entire production run was managed through care and attention to detail, testing each panel to ensure no variance would jeopardise the final Art Installation. Ensuring a seamless fit for all 31 panels.
For weeks, upon entering the factory, the Benga Designs team would find John measuring twice or thrice before initiating the plotter or Jim weeding the acrylic stencils that would later be used to create the Arabic script on the sand blasted panels.
Proto types were built at Urban Art in Northgate to test the procedure on home soil. Making their own sand and molten aluminium panels, affixing the sample mask John had created and blasting a sand mixture across the entire panel to create the final effect.
This has been an exciting project and one we are very proud to be involved. Visitors to the area will bask in the grandeur and opulence of the Grand Mosque mirrored in the reflecting pool whilst observing the Martyrs’ monument representative of fallen soldiers in an installation characteristic of a run of fallen dominoes.
