The exhibition will present a mix of new commissions, existing works and re-fabrications of ‘lost’ pieces by five artists who call the UAE home: Nujoom Alghanem, Sara Al Haddad, Vikram Divecha, Lantian Xie and Dr. Mohamed Yousif. Their exhibited works approach play through movement, rhythm, form, time and place.
Nujoom Alghanem will present Between Heaven & Earth, the Body I Borrowed, a sound installation based on a poetry performance, Space, a visual poem, and a reproduction of Silsilat Al Ramad, Volume 1, a self-published journal produced by the artist and other members of the Aqwas collective in 1985.
Sara Al Haddad will contribute three crocheted textile installations, including one existing work as you try to forget me and two new commissions: don’t you ever leave me alone, a hanging screen, and can’t you see how i feel, which Haddad sheaths one of the black steel pillars supporting the pavilion in different sized crocheted layers of pink yarn.
The works by Vikram Divecha are Degenerative Disarrangement, an existing work made from bricks which will be “relocated” in a new iteration, and Bathing Boulders, a commissioned video work which documents the process of washing large rocks as they were installed as part of Divecha’s 2014 work Boulder Plot.
Lantian Xie presents a selection of ‘things’ throughout the pavilion space, including existing works Hassan’s Ashtray, Half Cup Saffron and Taxidermy Peacock, as well as a major commission titled A rumble interrupted our chat – a series of objects and happenings which will unfold inside and outside of the pavilion throughout the six months of the Biennale.
Dr. Mohamed Yousif has refabricated two previous works which were no longer in existence: Al insiyabiyya bil majadeef taht al maa, a large-scale installation of wooden oars, and Al Shawahid, an assemblage of anthropomorphic spoons looking on a burial mound, with a small mirror affixed in its center.