At the Time of the Ebb

2019 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="section" style="background-color:#ffffff;"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p>15 min 39 sec<span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Garnett;"><br /></span></p></div></div></div></div>

Alia Farid

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For her work in Sharjah Biennial 14, Alia Farid traveled from the United Arab Emirates to Iran across the Strait of Hormuz to film the longest day of the summer. On Qeshm Island, where her film is set, the summer solstice is referred to as Nowruz Al Sayadeen (Farsi for “fishermen’s new year”). The work foregrounds a number of local residents whose performances draw attention to their material surroundings and natural environment–– from a brightly decorated domestic interior to an expansive sea view overlooking the Arabian Gulf. Amid ongoing geopolitical tensions between the Gulf countries and Iran, “At the time of the Ebb” achieves the exceptional task of giving visibility to instances of cultural overlap between the territories despite their jockeying governments. More importantly, it conjures a real and speculative time and space in which cultural, economic, and human exchange between Iran and the Gulf are not strictly articulated through infrastructures of trade, but also, and perhaps even especially, through life affirming expressions of hybridity that continue to provoke and enrich regional imaginaries.

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Alia Farid’s multidisciplinary practice sees the artist use video, drawing, installation and public intervention to explore various issues which habitually go unnoticed. Drawing upon her observations of her two countries of origin, Kuwait and Puerto Rico, she interrogates the impact of complex colonial histories, the influence of modern politics, the persistence of tradition and strategies of survival in the global south. Farid sees her practice as a subversive strategy for rendering visible narratives which are obfuscated by hegemonic power. In 2014 the artist curated the Kuwait pavilion at the Venice Biennale of architecture, tracing a century of Kuwaiti modernity, shaped by the discovery of oil. Following the biennale, the project continued with an informal school emergent from the conversations that took place during the presentation, with a focus on the social and political potential of architectural spaces and environments.

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Colors:

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• ritual.n.01
• local.n.01
• district.n.01
• imperialism.n.01
• market.n.01
• influence.n.01