The Follower

This season's public art project in Alserkal Avenue’s outdoor realm invites responses from artists represented by galleries at the Avenue and with a close relationship to the region. The series of site specific commissions appeared across the avenue from September 2022, launching with Meadow by Fahd Burki at the pedestrian entrance, the artist’s first public intervention, and Zenith by Ala’ Ebtekar, his largest public artwork to date. Passage by Sahand Hesamiyan was added in November 2022, a stellar canopy that plays with architecture, wind and natural light. Sentinels I-IV by Timo Nasseri appeared in January 2023, the artist’s first experiments with light. This Alserkal Art Week, Sarah Almehairi transforms the passages alongside Concrete into a visual poem with don't overlook the weather (as your thoughts collect), asking visitors to linger and observe both the earth and the sky as they pass through.

Inspired by these works, which invite us to pause and observe our surroundings more closely, the title of the project, The Follower, is a reference to the star Al Daberan that seems to follow Al Thuraya, the Pleiades. These are constellations of significance for astral navigation in our night sky as indicated by the fifteenth century master mariner of the Indian Ocean, Ahmad ibn Majid. If you are sensitive to your environment and know how to read the signs - the position of the sun and stars, the direction of the wind, the position of shadows and the forms of clouds, you know not just where you are, but also the exact time of day, or what weather to expect given the season. This implies that to locate yourself, you must not only trust your own instincts, but learn how to read signs from other sources—through research, observation, and from knowledge which may come from books of ancient or scientific wisdom, from your favourite grandmother, or simply directions from a fellow traveller or passer-by.

Part of Alserkal Arts Foundation’s public art commissions in 2022-2023, curated by Nada Raza and produced in collaboration with Alserkal Avenue galleries, Grey Noise and The Third Line, Lawrie Shabibi, and Carbon 12, with special thanks to Kevin Jones.

Sentinels I-IV

Timo Nasseri

Timo Nasseri’s site-specific Sentinels I-IV appear across Alserkal Avenue’s skyspace as mysterious guides or messengers, imploring us to pay attention. Since coming across the 'Razzle Dazzle' camouflage created by artists for naval ships during WW1, the artist has been preoccupied with the notion that the designs were derived from animal, indigenous and abstract decorative forms from across the world. The strong and recognisable shapes form a visual language that connects maritime disappearances to the reemergence of ancient spirit guides and protectors, connecting with the navigatory, astral and ancestral themes of The Follower in an unexpected and playful way. Our futuristic Sentinels collapse time as they evoke both ancient pasts and speculative futures. Forming a new constellation across the landscape of the Avenue, they encourage us to look up and search for other signs and symbols and create our own spatial, temporal and spiritual connections. This commission marks a new departure for Nasseri, working with outdoor neon sculpture for the first time.

don't overlook the weather (as your thoughts collect)

Sarah Almehairi

This site-specific public art commission by Sarah Almehairi responds to the invitation to create a contemplative space within narrow passages that are ordinarily a space visitors might just pass through on their way elsewhere, or occasionally stop for a moment to pose for an instagram photograph. Sarah intervenes by marking both the ground and the sky; looking down, we encounter objects, material traces that the artist has gathered, magpie-like, from the neighbourhood. Looking up, silvery text catches, moves and glimmers in the sunlight, reflecting its surroundings, lines of free verse that gently encourage us to take note of the weather. The work asks us to attend to the present moment and appreciate the shade, the sun, the shadows and the breeze as we continue to move towards our destination, made aware of our own ephemerality as we walk through a subtly altered environment.

Passage

Sahand Hesamiyan

For this site-specific commission, entitled Passage, Sahand Hesamiyan brings to light natural elements which are so often overlooked in contemporary life. Metaphorically referring to these elements through this poetic presentation, Hesamiyan encourages viewers to be reminded of their lost knowledge of the environment. In response to the surrounding elements, the rows of patterned and cut fabric acts as a filter for light and air, referencing the sky at different times of day. Moving with the wind and blocking the light, they create eye-catching starry silhouettes that dance on the ground, encouraging us to be more observant and appreciate beauty in the everyday; Passage is a voyage through light and wind.

Zenith

Ala Ebtekar

Ala Ebtekar’s Zenith series is influenced by writings of the 11th-century Islamic philosopher Suhrawardi, who proposed a framework for understanding the universe based on properties of illumination and intuition. In Ebtekar’s rendering, the cyanotype process, in which an iron-red ferrous solution is exposed to UV light to produce vivid cyan, becomes an alchemical technique merging earthly matter and myth, painting and photographic methods. The works in Zenith were exposed at the sun’s zenith in the sky for a single day in each of the four seasons, connecting human and cosmic timescales.

Ebtekar’s Zenith works swirl with pirouetting clouds; overlying this pattern is a brilliant scattering of stellate inclusions, glimmering in a cosmic field of deep blue sky. The cloud openings create gateways and portals to the cosmos, and ourselves. These portals will span across the topography of Alserkal Avenue and activate the space at these sites.

Sunset

Fahd Burki

Sunset is a complex gradient transitioning from peachy orange to a deep blue following the colours of a dusty evening sky. Sandwiched between monotone architecture the image greets visitors with a flat spectrum of colour contrasting the corrugated, industrial grey of its surroundings.

Meadow

Fahd Burki

The introduction of a soft green gradient in a landscape dominated by dusty greys brings to mind the idea of an oasis. Meadow presents a plasticized emulation of such a space. Playing on ideas of illusion and flatness, the work meets the viewer in their physical space as solid green form and draws them to the illusion; a pasture, a field, with a fence marking the threshold just before the exit.

Biographies

Sarah Almehairi (b. 1998, Abu Dhabi, UAE) lives and works in Abu Dhabi and holds a BA in Art and Art History from New York University Abu Dhabi. Almehairi's overarching body of work unfolds a discourse on themes of materiality, systems & interrelations, memory, and language through the intuitive and poetic examination of narrative and abstraction. By engaging with geometric forms, she extracts and defines a structural language read time and time again to suggest a form other than its own– a map, a sentence, a puzzle piece. Through the process, they are broken down, built, and reassembled as continuous iterations of themselves. These elements towards telling a story are not so explicit, lines and layers are used throughout her pieces as a means of exploring clarity and organization of collected information. Working primarily with investigative range of media, she explores the push and pull of material to evoke a story that both conceals and reveals itself.

She has participated in several group exhibitions, including Perceptible Rhythms/Alternative Temporalities, Middle East Institute, Washington DC (2022); Beyond: Emerging Artists, Abu Dhabi Art Commission (2022); Portrait of a Nation II: Beyond Narratives, ADMAF, Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi (2022), Intimate Dimensions, Hafez Gallery, Jeddah (2020); The Youth Takeover, Jameel Arts Centre Dubai, (2019); and the 35th Annual Emirates Fine Art Society Exhibition, Sharjah Art Museum (2018). Her solo exhibitions include Between (2019) and When the Ground Was (2022), Carbon 12 Gallery, Dubai. Almehairi is also co-founder of JARA Collective, a chapbook press based in Abu Dhabi.

Timo Nasseri (b. 1972, Berlin, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. He received his diploma in photography from the Lette-Verein, Berlin in 1997. Nasseri explores themes such as geometry, mathematics, architecture, calligraphy, and most recently, camouflage. Combining Islamic and Western cultural heritages, his work is inspired as much by specific memories and religious references as by universal archetypes described by mathematics and language, and the inner truths of form and rhythm. His work uses the means of natural science to open up a perspective for the poetic and fantastic. Nasseri takes his inspiration from mathematics, geometry and patterns and underlines their interconnectedness in terms of repetition and aesthetics in his drawings and sculptures. His practice is one that tackles the subject of infinity and that aims to solve puzzles, whether they are historical mysteries or the explorations via mathematical theorems to discover an overarching order in the chaos of existence.

He has participated in several group and solo exhibitions including Mercedes-Benz Contemporary (2022); Museum Konkrete Kunst Ingolstadt (2022); The British Museum, London (2021); The Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2021); Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2022, 2019); ZKM, Karlsruhe (2019); Sfeir-Semler Gallery (2009,12,15,19); CCA Andratx (2019); Stichting Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen (2018);the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (2017); the Melbourne Triennale (2017); Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah (2017);Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt (2016); AK Vienna (2016); KW-Kunstwerke, Berlin (2015); and the Drawing Room Biennial, London (2021,2019, 2015). He was also the winner of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize in 2011.

Sahand Hesamiyan (b. 1977, Tehran, Iran) holds a Bachelor of Sculpture from the University of Tehran. The artist's versatile practice is informed by a profound understanding of construction techniques, culminating in larger-than-life metal sculptures and small elaborate works on paper. By creating interactive pieces that eclipse the mere repetition and reflection of these traditional forms, Hesamiyan is able to convey his acute technical abilities while taking inspiration from years of craftsmanship and historical concepts.

Embracing the close ties between geometry, mythology, and philosophy, Hesamiyan is focused on extracting traditional elements from these ancient sciences and adapting them for the present and future. His explorations often manifest in the form of complex sculptures, whether they be freestanding objects or multifaceted wall installations. As a master of designing structural systems, Hesamiyan reinterprets architecture and its elements in Persian architecture.

Ala Ebtekar (b. 1978 Berkeley, CA) is an artist who has situated his art practice as a relentless leveling, exploding, and collapsing of time and space to bring steadying attention to the contemporary moment.

His vast transnational background in studio practice, public and street art, has led to being the founder and director of Stanford University’s Art, Social Space and Public Discourse, an ongoing Stanford global initiative on art that investigates the multiple contexts that shift and define changing ideas of public space. This ongoing critical framework of conversations, newly commissioned art projects, and exploration of various cultural productions and intellectual traditions looks at recent transformations of civic life. Furthermore, he has more than a dozen public and civic art commissions, most recently produced by Facebook, SFO/San Francisco International Airport, and the Asian Art Museum.

Fahd Burki (b. 1981, Lahore, Pakistan / Lives and works in Lahore, Pakistan) graduated from the National College of Arts, Lahore in 2003 and received a Postgraduate Diploma from the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 2010.

Exhibitions : Daydreams, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE / Wheredoiendandyoubegin - On Secularity, 9th Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Sweden – Curated by Nav Haq / SPRING1883, Sydney, Australia / Folds of Belonging, Brisbane, Australia – Curated by Tess Maunder / SOCIAL CALLIGRAPHIES, Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland – Curated by Magda Kardasz with Magdalena Komornicka / Gwangju Biennale 11, Gwangju, South Korea – Curated by Maria Lind / THE MISSING ONE, OCA, Oslo, Norway – Curated by Nada Raza / Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka, Bangladesh / GALLERYSKE, Bangalore, India / Carré D’Art, Nîmes, France.