The Edge of Arabia exhibition

Shifting Sands: A Battle Song amplifies the voices of Saudi Arabian women on an international scale. For the project, AlDowayan held three workshops in Al Khobar, Jeddah, and Riyadh. Participants of all ages were invited to join group singing lessons led by the artist and Ileana Yasmin, a vocal coach for the Music Commission within the Ministry of Culture in Riyadh. The women were asked to consider their representation in the context of the international media and to write about and illustrate their perceptions of each other. The result is a highly personal meditation on identity within a global context. The illustrations, texts and songs created in the workshops will be incorporated into the installation. The work is an expression of self-determinism and a document of collectivity. 

Manal AlDowayan

AlDowayan is well known for her artworks that foreground the collaborative voices of women. For example, in 2023, she presented From Shattered Ruins, New Life Shall Bloom at the Guggenheim, New York. This piece contained a collection of porcelain scrolls annotated with text sourced from popular culture, media, and literature, that evidence the oppression of women. The work was activated when visitors were called upon to observe and then crush the porcelain objects. The words and their significance were destroyed, leaving space for new narratives to be written. Suspended Together (2011) contains 200 fiberglass dove sculptures. Each flightless bird has a permission to travel document written across its body. The documents were submitted by leading women from Saudi Arabia. The document is issued by an appointed male guardian and must be carried by every female regardless of age or position. In such works, AlDowayan creates powerful opportunities for understanding and action.

Photography by Iman Al-Dabbagh @photosbyiman

AlDowayan’s contribution to the Venice Biennale promises to be an evocative experience that celebrates visibility and autonomy. In a statement, the artist explains, “Shifting Sands: A Battle Song is a call for solidarity in the context of the global representation of women in and from Saudi Arabia, and a rally to take ownership of our identity as we navigate both the physical space we inhabit and the narratives that have historically defined us.”

Photography by Iman Al-Dabbagh @photosbyiman

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“My father realised how I wasn’t willing to give up on it, and how determined I was. When I applied for my BA, he knew I was nervous about how I was going to take all my work over for the interview. By then I had made a lot of sculptural work and things that you couldn’t just put in a portfolio. So, he actually hired a man with a van and surprised me. He was shocked when I sold my degree show. He couldn’t understand how I could possibly make any money from art. He came to the show just to see what it was that I do. He said, ‘anyone can make this’, she recalls, humourously. “He is no longer around,” Begum adds. “I wish he could see where I am now in my career.”

No. 901 Folded Grid, 2019. Photography by Philip White

Begum is currently one of the most in-demand artists whose works have been showcased in cities including London (where she now lives and works), Hong Kong and Dubai – where she was awarded the Abraaj Group Art Prize in 2017 as well as being represented by the Third Line Gallery in Alserkal Avenue, where her solo show, ‘Perception and Reflection’ took place in 2019.

Begum’s sculptural works combine abstract forms and geometry, using mostly industrial materials and a dose of spontaneity and motion, where a change of light in the environment could impact the form and the use of fluorescent colour. The viewer also plays a vital role in the work, who is encouraged to observe the pieces from multiple perspectives, gracing it with a transformational nature. The simplicity and geometry in Begum’s work is born from a number of influences – some which were, at first, subconscious. These range from the geometric patterns found in Islamic art and architecture to her upbringing that involved rituals of repetition such as praying five times a day and reading the Qur’an.

“What I am excited about is this kind of connection with the things that I see. The vibrant bold colours that you see in Islamic art and architecture and the bold use of geometry. The idea of the infinite. It all kind of stems from there and these are things that I am excited by. But I also still love the relevance that it has to now, and to my experiences.”   

Begum’s childhood memories from Bangladesh have also inspired many of the principles that arise in her work, such as the honest yet ephemeral influence of light.

“It was through Cognitive Analytical Therapy that I realised that I spent a lot of my childhood in Bangladesh kind of just staring into space. I used to stare at the water quite a lot, watching the reflections and the light changing. I also used to stare at the rice fields. Just rows and rows of rice fields and watching the movements of the plants. And that’s when it hit me. I was like, ‘my God, it kind of makes sense now’.”

However, Begum explains that despite the struggle, she did not want to be defined by her background: “I was really keen to keep the doors open and not be pigeonholed. As much as I was struggling as a female Muslim artist, I was determined to not go down that road. I wanted the work to naturally develop and find its position in the art world,” she says.

Begum began working with figurative and representational art although her works already possessed some of the elements she is known for today. Discovering constructivist and abstract artists such as Donald Judd, Sol Le Witt, Agnes Martin and Kenneth Martin allowed her to visualise the potential and growth of her own work.

Is she comfortable being labeled a minimalist? “There has always been this thing where people have to attach a label and I have always tried to stay away from that. But I feel that people need some kind of anchor and I think minimalist is the closest to what I am trying to do, so for me it hasn’t been a problem,” she says.

No. 764 Baskets, 2017-18. Photography by Paul Allitt

On the other hand, she does not agree when her work is described as ‘illusionary’: “I have an issue with the word ‘illusion’ because I feel that that is not something that I am trying to do with my work. It’s never been about deceiving the viewer. It is honest in terms of the material I use and how it is used as well,” she says.

Begum’s research initially began with form and light and only in 2008 was she able to introduce colour into her work. She realised she couldn’t do it all at once and needed to separate them in order to bring them together eventually.

“I really struggled with colour. You wouldn’t think that, but, I definitely struggled with colour and that’s why I wanted to spend time to understand colour a bit more. Now I feel more confident and I can work with colour a lot better than I used to.

“I feel like now, form, light and colour are points that create this triangle [in my work] and one can’t work without the other. I knew, before, that I wasn’t quite there yet. I knew that I wasn’t achieving what I wanted to. The earlier work helped me understand something I didn’t understand at first. I needed to go through that process,” she explains.

“I was really keen to keep the doors open and not be pigeonholed. As much as I was struggling as a female Muslim artist, I was determined to not go down that road. I wanted the work to naturally develop and find its position in the art world.”

Begum’s solo exhibition, ‘The Space Between’ at the Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art in London in 2016, curated by the foundation’s founder and director, Ziba Ardalan, allowed Begum to achieve a greater sense of understanding of her work as it brought together a selection of past and recent works in a manner that was “slightly chronological”.

“It really helped bring things together and make sense of what I am doing. The Parasol Unit exhibition gave me the confidence that I needed,” Begum shares.

No. 673 M Drawing, 2016

She is also beginning to create more affordable works. “A lot of the work that I do goes into collectors’ homes. But I have started doing prints and working with Cristea Roberts Gallery and those pieces are more accessible. I think that is important,” she says.

Begum has also recently contributed to the NHS 100 Rooms initiative, her work now gracing the walls of the respite rooms for frontline workers in hospitals across east London.

“I have spent a lot of time at the hospitals because my father was quite ill, and he was in and out of hospitals for years. And I know we really valued the artworks that were in the waiting room or in the hallway. It made a massive difference to us. For me knowing that the art makes a difference to your mental health was a big deal,” she says.

“In these times of COVID-19, you have to do what you can. It’s not easy. The best thing is to know that the art can make a difference.”   

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Stackable chairs are a common notion among designers and manufacturers, a feature created for flexibility and portability. Some of the world’s most famous chairs feature a stackable design, from Eames’ Molded Plastic Stacking Side Chair and Kartell’s Master Chair to Alvar Aalto’s iconic Stool 60 for Artek. For Houston-based chair stacking artist and photographer, Cary Fagan, the process of stacking chairs is less functional, and more about the practice and exploration.

“Stacking chairs is more about the sculptural performance and the thoughts leading up to the creation – the end piece. It isn’t meant to showcase design, though it accomplishes that notion. It is merely to show that it is possible to create in this form,” Fagan explains.

Photography by Daniel Civetti

Beginning his creative journey as a photographer and filmmaker and working with well-known names in the music and fashion industries including Solange, Kanye West and A$AP Rocky, Fagan became interested in chairs when he was invited to Japan for an artist’s residency in 2018. There he experimented outside of his usual medium and instead, discovered a love and appreciation for chairs, which he compares to people in their balance of complexity and simplicity.

“If you think about it, the kanji for chair in Japanese means ‘strange wood child’,” he says.

This discovery later led to the creation of a community-based platform called ‘Chairs are People’, where people from across the globe share their recent finds and cultivate one another’s appreciation for chairs – be it on its website, on Reddit or on Instagram.

A year after his residency in Japan, Fagan was invited to Florence by Numeroventi, an artist and design residency, where he was commissioned to further explore chair stacking as an art form, which he says opened his eyes to the artistry of stacking. In Italy, Fagan also had the opportunity to explore chairs from a more design-focused perspective.

Photography by Cary Fagan

“In January, I was in Milan visiting the Triennale Milano and ironically, they had an exhibition called ‘Italian Radical Designs’. I got to study some of the most prolific works from the 1940s to the 90s, with the Pratone being one of my favourites,” he shares.

Earlier this year, Fagan designed his first chair, which is currently under production. The unnamed piece will be launched under his newly established and trademarked brand, Chairs are People – an extension of his existing online community.

Photography by Daniel Civetti

The steel-framed chair will feature leather upholstery and curved legs that appear to be floating, with an acrylic form connecting the legs and seat to establish support, inspired by the shapes found across the Memphis style which Fagan greatly admires for its bold forms.

“I’ve been very inspired by the Memphis Group and Memphis style. I love their shapes,” he shares. “The idea is to give the viewer clean lines that are then interrupted by this object in the middle.”

The soon-to-launch chair, which he describes as an “original design that is imperfect”, is also inspired by designs from Natuzzi and Herman Miller.

“I fused my favourite chair designers with my favourite features from their designs,” he says. “I’ve recently come to the consensus that this chair is meant to serve as a temporary experience – maybe as a dinner or luncheon chair. I’m sure the idea will evolve once it’s in front of me,” he adds, explaining his plans to introduce a family of chairs based on his first design that will serve different scenarios – from lounge to work, and even a stool version.

“I have a few other ideas for chairs in the future but this aspiration is an investment and a risky one,” he confides. “As I approach my first prototype, I keep in mind that there is, in fact, no such thing as a perfect chair.”

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