With this country we were really faced with a whole new challenge. Finding Graffiti and Streetart in Oman? … Hmmm … is there anything like that? Of course you can find heaps of architectural creativity, canvas art and beautiful natural landscapes. But with murals and wall paintings it looked more difficult. The whole sultanate consists almost entirely of desert and in the cities everything is kept very “uniform” and regulated. Nevertheless, Oman is one of the more open and liberal countries on the Arabian Peninsula, worth a visit. And we still found some graffiti stuff in the end, but then you have to search a lot and look closely.
By chance, we found the painted bridge piers at Wadi Shab and rediscovered some more on two other “Wadis”. For more pics from the Sinkholes and the Wadis, check out the links or the Infothek at the end. Full-scale benches in nowhere are not the eye-catcher, but given the location completely off the beaten track in the desert, we thought counting it to the collection. Does not look very nice though, but Tagging is as well kind of streetart. We added as well some pics from galleries and nice Arabic artwork.
The “Wadis” are a cool natural phenomenon, half-dried river courses or sinkholes, which fill up during the rainy days in a short time with a lot of water, but then just as quickly shrink back to a trickle size together. On the non-rain days, which are almost all year round, you can still chill and swim there. It´s fantastic! Due to the high canyon walls, the rivers are only exposed to the midday heat and the water does not evaporate, even though the river is in the middle of the desert. With a rental car you can visit countless wadis in the region and similar oases places. Via the quite well working Internet connections anywhere you can also book accommodations nearby easily.
You should defintily have seen as well the capital Muscat when visiting the country and you will have to do it most probably anyway, because nearly all planes arrive in Muscat with all the travelers at its airport. It´s worth to spend some days exploring the city. The food is great, the bazaar, the Fort and the Royal Castle, but there are also a handful of good galleries. For more non-streetart impressions about the city check out the Muscat Reportage. We couldn´t find a lot of wall paintings, so we looked just for art in the museums. And so we came finally still across some more street art again. There are very well painted houses around that small area. Namely the Ghalya’s Museum of Modern Art in Muscat. And even at the Street Treat Burgershop denigrates a nice graffiti outside, inside is currently being expanded and decorated with more pictures.
At Culture Trip you will find a list of a lot of other art venues to visit and a short description: https://theculturetrip.com/asia/oman/
MORE ARTICLES ABOUT OMAN
>>> Impressions of Muscat <<<
>>> Adventurous Wadi Shab <<<
>>> The Bimmah Sinkhole <<<
>>> Through the villages – Maskat Region <<<
>>> Streetart Qurrayat <<<
>>> Graffiti at the Wadis <<<
>>> Ghalya´s Museum of Modern Art <<<