Rayyane Tabet
Home on Neutral Ground: a project in three parts. 2011
2-Channel HD video, colour, surround sound, 24 hours. Steel, MDF, wheels, chalk.
Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation
About the work
An aerial photograph of a vacant plot of land in Afghanistan printed to scale on a pitch protector and installed in the Sharjah Cricket Stadium for the night of March 18, 2011. Colour digital print on flex.
One day of uninterrupted footage of the Sharjah Cricket Stadium shot in September 2010, projected onto two sightscreens in a galleryspace with a floor drawing of a cricket pitch. 2-channel HD video, colour, surround sound, 24 hours, steel, MDF, wheels, chalk.
One square foot of white paint silk screened on seven hundred and forty portfolios distributed during the Biennial, each containing a drawing made on Sharjah Cricket Stadium stationary. Pencil on paper, offset print on paper, screen print on cardboard, edition of 740.
The Sharjah Cricket Stadium was built in 1981 by an Emirati entrepreneur upon his return home from studying in Pakistan. It grew through the 1980s and 1990s into one of the most prominent neutral venues for major international matches. In the following years its reputation receded and it was left to live on in the presence of its own past. In 2010 it was donated to the national cricket team of Afghanistan and named their home ground. In the accumulation of these events, the stadium extends itself through references to other locations. A piece of Afghani land comes to cover a cricket pitch in Sharjah, a section of a stadium packs up and moves to a museum and the area of a cricket pitch gives itself out in one square foot units of white paint.
© From the SB10 Guidebook.
© Photos: Haupt & Binder, Universes in Universe
Teil 2 der Fototour durch die Sharjah Biennale 10: Plot for a Biennial; 16. März - 16. Mai 2011. Kuratorinnen: Suzanne Cotter, Rasha Salti; Assoziierter Kurator: Haig Aivazian. Mehr als 100 Beteiligte.