Field notes: 2

This summer, Arnolfini presents multidisciplinary artist Dana Awartani’s first institutional European solo exhibition: Standing by the ruins. It is a really powerful exhibition, the ideas are thought-provoking, but so simple that you wish you had thought of them.

The image above shows how the artist sweeps away the sand that is laid in the traditional tile design to reveal a more modern pattern. You watch as you are trying to understand what is happening. It is unsettling, the idea that the sand can never by placed to recreate that design.

“Awartani – a Palestinian-Saudi artist – addresses the physical loss of cultural heritage through the lens of abandoned, destroyed and vanishing places. Working across painting, installation, textiles, performance and film, she draws attention to both the human act of making and human loss, reflecting upon the ravages of conflict within the Middle East and architectural modernisation ingrained with colonial legacy.”

https://arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/danaawartani/