WHERE MOUNTAINS HOLD MEMORY

An evocative exhibition at Stal Gallery in Muscat is bringing together art, archival material and mountain history to reflect on the early development of trekking tourism in the Sultanate of Oman.
Titled 'Silent Markings in Oman: Where the Mountain Remembers Reinhard Siegl', and presented in collaboration with the Austrian Embassy to Oman, the exhibition explores the intersection of landscape, lived experience and cultural memory through the work of artist and curator Marjan Habibian and the legacy of her late husband, Reinhard Siegl.
The exhibition presents 54 works, including an installation and two video pieces. Habibian’s paintings, drawings and prints are shown alongside 19 photographs and artworks by Siegl dating back to 1983. This offers insight into a formative period in Oman’s outdoor heritage.
Over more than 28 years, Siegl charted hundreds of kilometres of trekking routes across Oman’s mountainous regions and established the country’s first via ferrata, playing a pioneering role in organising mountain tourism.
He also worked with young Omanis in trekking development and collaborated with the Oman Youth Organisation. His sudden passing in March 2025 lends the exhibition its commemorative depth.

Among the most striking works is a twelve-part painting series created directly on printed maps and photographs of Oman’s mountain terrain.
By transforming cartographic documents into painterly surfaces, Habibian turns geographical records into vessels of personal and shared memory.
Several works are painted on maps marking trekking routes, including As Sawjrah, the 500-year old village in Al Jabal Al Akhdhar, reinforcing the connection between place and lived experience.
Themes of loss are further explored in pieces created on radiology film combined with gold leaf. An installation composed of Siegl’s working tools and personal belongings anchors the exhibition in tangible history, blending everyday objects with symbolic reflection.
Art researcher and gallerist Volodymyra Sobolevska situates Siegl’s contribution within a broader historical framework. “From a historical perspective, Reinhard Siegl’s work represents an early phase in the development of mountain tourism in Oman,” she notes.
“His long-term fieldwork contributed to the transition of mountainous terrain from unexplored space into an organised cultural landscape.”
She also highlights the influence of Siegl’s Austrian upbringing in the Weiz region, where mountaineering culture is deeply embedded in social history.
The alpine traditions of the nineteenth century — including trail systems and via ferrata routes — shaped his understanding of how mountains can be integrated into public life.

Habibian frequently accompanied Siegl on his expeditions and later translated those shared journeys into visual narratives. Many of the works are created on printed photographs of the terrain where they worked together, capturing what Sobolevska describes as the “memory of place.”
Siegl’s early photographs add historical resonance to the exhibition. Images of Al Athaiba fishermen and scenes from Nizwa taken in 1986 document communities and environments at a moment preceding significant social and infrastructural change.
Today, these photographs preserve architectural details and working life that have since evolved.
Beyond its documentary value, Sobolevska describes the exhibition as a form of cultural preservation. “This exhibition functions as an alternative archive,” she says. “It preserves not only facts, but values — care, endurance, responsibility.”
In regions where environmental history is still being written, art becomes a means of safeguarding memory before it fades. Silent Markings in Oman is ultimately not only about remembering one man, but about recognising how cultural and touristic identity is shaped — through individuals, shared journeys and an ethical relationship with place.
The exhibition was inaugurated on January 20 by Ambassador Christophe Ceska, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Consul Gernot Widener, Hassan Al Meer and Volodymyra Sobolevska of Stal Gallery.
Alongside the exhibition, Marjan Habibian also led a painting and drawing masterclass on January 27 and 28. The exhibition remains open to the public until February 15, on Sunday.