I was asked to design the visuals for Kuwaiti group Boom.Diwan for their concert on the main stage of the Mother of the Nation Festival in Abu Dhabi in March 2019. Boom.Diwan is a fusion ensemble that is inspired by Kuwaiti pearl diving music, and is led by ethnomusicologist Ghazi Al-Mulaifi.

Within less than a week I had to create 90 minutes worth of visual content. The visuals involved digital animations, hand-drawn frame-by-frame animations, image composites, and illustrations that reflected the identity of the group and the style of their music.

Some of the visuals I created used found images of pearl textures and mother of pearl sea shell textures. The visuals flowed, and made reference to the sea and pearl diving culture of Kuwait using these textures as abstract forms.

I also decided to allude to sailboats by creating a D-like form inspired by the shape of a sail.

I used this form as a recurring icon and pattern throughout the visual set.

Photographs of the event were taken by Waleed Shah.