Week 2 Reflection

Art in The Age of Colonialism

This week, we watched a video by PBS Education called Explorers: Age of Encounter. Apart from Zheng He and the Arab navigator in Malindi, who else is missing from these Eurocentric narratives? Hint: Watch the video on Magellan!

 

Week 2 Reflection

Another missing navigator is a famous Arab traveler of the 1300s, Ibn Battuta. As mentioned in class, he is similar to Zheng He who has also travelled across the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives but only stayed for a while before continuing his journey to China.

From a source I read in HISTORY, the author mentioned that Battuta had been through lots of challenges as a traveler during the 1300s. For example, the source mentioned ‘ he was later kidnapped and robbed of everything but his pants.’ This incident happened during Battuta’s trip to the Orient. He even fell sick during his journey to North Africa. However, he still persevered during his journey by tying himself on the saddle to prevent himself from collapsing.

I find that as a traveler, he could overcome these challenges by going out all means is a bold decision to take. Holding a dream to roam across the earth, he told himself to not just stop at one destination but continue travelling across many continents such as Africa and China. Many people may say that Marco Polo or Christopher Columbus would be one of the most famous travelers of all time. However, I say that Ibn Battuta could also be part of this name as he fought against all challenges and won the hearts of locals in Muslim controlled lands.

His journey never seemed to stop as he even held a multiyear excursion across the Sahara to the Mali Empire in Timbuktu proving his passion for travel and the desire to fulfill his dream is true.

Author: Audrelia Lim

I am an ADM ( Arts, Design, Media) student from NTU who is interested in Visual Communication, Animation, Film. I always like to see how far my imagination can take me and explore my own creativity skills.

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