A Public Privacy
Emerging GCC artists facing a context where the private dimension is trivialised in public and the public is immortalised in the private arena. Curatorial essay for the show at DUCTAC, Dubai.
For an optimal view of our website, please rotate your tablet horizontally.
Negative Heaps (of Designated Waste). 2015
Installation
In his project Negative Heaps (of Designated Waste), Divecha uses the decorative patterns beautifying “underpass tunnels in the UAE with … arabesque motifs, national landmarks, calligraphy and content celebrating nationalistic pride” as a starting point to reflect on notions of exuberance and redundancy. He works with the portions of tiles that are sacrificed to be replaced by those segments composing the decorative motif as they represent the pieces left behind “which never make it to the 'public' walls of the tunnel”. Divecha adopts and raises the materiality of these unutilised remnants to metaphors for the messages that cannot reach public visibility and are not worth celebration or monumentalisation.
© Photo: empty 10, Dubai
Emerging GCC artists facing a context where the private dimension is trivialised in public and the public is immortalised in the private arena. Curatorial essay for the show at DUCTAC, Dubai.