In Process : In Progress marks the midpoint of the inaugural cohort of the NYU Abu Dhabi Master of Fine Arts program. The presented pieces by artists Mahra AlFalahi, Liane Al Ghusain, Majd Alloush, Fabiola Chiminazzo, and Elizabeth Dorazio are the culmination of their first year of research and experimentation. In their studio and the classroom, they have surveyed and engaged with a wide array of interests: the environment, the notion of expansion, fictional creatures, landscapes, and movement in various forms.

The artists’ collective participation in the MFA program has enabled their processes to permeate each other as makers and learners. Thus, revealing a progressively dynamic framework for their upcoming conversations: examining the instability of the physical world. Within this effort, the artists’ practices build a vocabulary centered around dystopia, metaphysics, the intricacies of nature, life cycles, and devotion. Their works can be visualized in progressively layered conversations about the instabilities of space, country, gender, and the body.

To support these multiple explorations, video, sound, painting, pyrography, textile, print, and soft sculpture serve as their trusted mediums. A few of their artist books and archives also make an appearance. These collectively materialize distinctive approaches to research and practice, as well as artistic philosophy and language. Altogether, the presented individual projects generously amplify their artists’ conceptual thinking, and interact with a wider audience before being built upon in the MFA program’s final year.