YARAT RESIDENCY RESULTS EXHIBITION: AMNA AL DABBAGH (UAE) MEDIATOR | DESTROYER | REVIVER

YARAT Contemporary Art Space is delighted to present a solo exhibition of Amna Al Dabbagh (Jawad), a young visual artist and a graphic designer from Sharjah.

The show is a result of her 6 weeks residency at YARAT Studios, as part of an exchange program between YARAT Contemporary Arts Space, Baku and Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah. 

STATEMENT / CONCEPT:

Meteorology and in particular, wind, is a recurring subject matter of Al Dabbagh’s art. Her curiosity has led to her to Baku, historically called ‘Badukube’, meaning the ‘City of Wind’, due to frequent winds blowing throughout the year. After researching local mythology and visiting institutions such as the Hydro-meteorological and Weather Forecasting Bureau and Institute of Geography, she developed an installation ‘MEDIATOR | DESTROYER | REVIVER’.

Installation captures wind in three situations: as a mediator, a destroyer and as a reviver. In many cultures including the Azerbaijani, wind has been seen as the moderator between people who are separated by long distances, and the one that guides people to the right path. In Turkic mythologies, wind was mostly portrayed as a negative spirit that destroys the crops and kidnaps people. However, with the arrival of Islam to Azerbaijan and during that period, a genre of poetry about Novruz has arisen, and it mostly portrays wind as the awakener of nature and the revival. Before Novruz holiday, there is Wind Tuesday which celebrates the element of wind as the animator of the three other elements: water, fire and earth. Wind is an invisible element, and when it blows, it becomes visible through the objects it moves. In her exhibition the artist translates the essence of the wind through fabric. 

ABOUT ARTIST:

Amna Al Dabbagh is an artist and a graphic designer from the United Arab Emirates and the city of Dubai. She carries a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communications – Graphic Design and a minor in Architecture from the American University in Dubai. Upon graduation, she received the Outstanding Graphic Design Student Award. Her work was exhibited in Sikka Art Fair in 2015 and Ductac Art Gallery in 2014 and was shortlisted for Sheikha Manal Young Artist Award in 2012. She took part in Crossing the Line conference in Florence in November 2015, where she represented the American University in Dubai. She was also amongst the three selected students from her university to participate in Activating and Augmenting the Damascus Room conference in November 2013 in Dresden, Germany. In this conference, she worked with a group of students from the Technical University in Dresden on improving the museum experience of the Damascus room located in the Japanese Palais. She has worked as a graphic designer for Abjad Designs, interned in Start JG and volunteered in Art Dubai with ARNDT Gallery and the artist Wim Delovye in 2013 and in Sikka Art Fair in 2012.

Date: 25 December 2015

Time: 19:00

Venue: ARTIM Project Space

Address: Old City (Icherisheher) Boyuk Gala Street 30, 001A 

Admission is free

More details: info@yarat.az; 012 505 1414

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