SB13 in Sharjah
10 March - 12 June 2017. Curator: Christine Tohmé. Exhibitions, programmes, projects in Sharjah by 73 participants.
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Envelope, 2017
Hot air balloon envelope
Venue: Al Hamdan Bin Mousa Courtyard, Art Spaces at Al Mureijah Square
In previous works, Abbas Akhavan has examined the domestication of nature, reflected in gardens and parks, as an extension of a settler colonial logic of progress manifest through expansion of the built environment. For SB13, he draws our attention upward—the direction most associated with futurity—in three interrelated works that explore gestures of aerial projection and perspective.
In conjunction with his other work Variations on a Garden (2017, presented in Bait Al Serkal), Akhavan explores the poetic and political dimensions of an aerial vantage point in two works. Presented in Al Hamdan Bin Mousa Courtyard, Envelope is a decommissioned hot air balloon that is occasionally inflated with buoyant air. The work takes its name from the impermeable nylon-polyester panels used for the balloon. Capable of rising over 20,000 metres high, the balloon is seen here in a recurring process of rise and fall, suggesting a long historical view of civilisation as well as the cycle of breath.
Kids, Cats and 1 Dog (2016) is a text work installed on the Gallery 1 rooftop - see page 3
(From the SB13 Guidebook)
See also his work at
Bait Al Serkal
* 1977 Tehran, Iran. Lives in Toronto, Canada.
© Photo: Haupt & Binder
10 March - 12 June 2017. Curator: Christine Tohmé. Exhibitions, programmes, projects in Sharjah by 73 participants.