in-habit Exibition
Featuring: Dima Abou Zannad, Sarah Al Saman & Sultan AlRemeithi
"As we conceptualised this exhibition we kept coming back to the simple question of the role of the artist in making, thinking and being. As the artists in this exhibition unpacked conceptual threads with us as curators and peers, we contemplated the definitions that brought us together and shaped the processes we found ourselves in. The artist as researcher became the guiding lens of how we came to understand the intersections between the two angles of making; both in terms of exhibition and art. In our geographical context, this raw dialogue is often underexposed. What makes an early career artist practicing, researching and producing in the contemporary art ecosystems of the Gulf, at this point in time, a historically unique phenomenon? While individual and even idiosyncratic in their expressions, they are shaped and influenced, consciously or unconsciously by external forces. Artist-as-researcher in the contemporary Gulf sees the impact of these external forces on their practice, and how their practice is perceived and incorporated into wider cultural settings. This exhibition is a culmination of the three territories that were studied and observed; they explore the structural tectonics of how lived environments segment and enforce class distinction. They turn kitchen table cloths into a codex of emancipation. They knit, weave and repeat, studying themselves and the universe, the essence of existence alongside their own insecurities. They are insiders and outsiders, being and doing, celebrated and opposed, with forces around them extracting and discarding. The body of work showcased in this exhibition by Dima Abou Zannad, Sultan AlRemeithi and Sarah Al Saman is an ongoing dismantlement of the artists’ thought process. Layers to the investigation remain, within the definition of confession, the cladded rough walls of upmarket buildings and the silent horizon between sea and space."
- Engage 101