For her presentation at Abu Dhabi Art Alymamah Rashed has produced a body of work that had evolved from research conducted during her recent residency on Failaka Island in Kuwait.
Failaka Island is known as a key archaeological site in the Gulf with relics from the Bronze Age, Hellenistic Age, and Greek antiquity. In parallel, the island has been characterised as a post-apocalyptic environment as a result of the Gulf War. The island was evacuated, yet people remained. During her residency, Rashed travelled there and collected fragments from the island and conducted her own contemporary archaeological excavation. She had gathered seashells, pieces of carpet, tiles, and other found objects in order to establish her own sense of the island in the contemporary moment, uniting the island's past with her personal present. This experience stimulated a new body of work that Rashed developed for the art fair. For Abu Dhabi Art, Rashed produced a new series of watercolour and acrylic paintings and a sculptural work that extended this original research and process towards the UAE, with a particular focus on Siniyah Island. Rashed has worked with a UAE-based archaeologist to ground her research through an in-depth knowledge of the Emirates’ historic past.
