Heat Burns: Solo Exhibition by Ahaad Alamoudi

HEAT BURNS Ahaad Alamoudi

HEAT BURNS Ahaad Alamoudi

Curated by Amal Khalaf

29th January — 18th April

HEAT BURNS

Text by Amal Khalaf

An aspirational lifestyle has emerged in the Gulf, one based on positivity, efficiency and productivity. Its proponents circulate on social media, TV and YouTube changing the way that we interact at home, in public and at work. Positivity and productivity are now the markers of success and there are considerable efforts to mold society into a happy, efficient, productive one. What are the implications of applying the same strategies meant for individual positivity and “improvement” to the many?

Ahaad Alamoudi begins to answer these questions in her latest body of work, Heat Burns, addressing topics of hegemony, technology and power through the lens of the fast paced, societal changes. She witnesses society’s adaptation to these changes, questioning what is lost and gained through this process, observing how people navigate their way through transformation.

Central to the iconography of Heat Burns is the symbol of the iron and the colour yellow. Alamoudi sees the iron as a tool for action, creating change through heat and pressure. The Pantone Yellow overwhelms the show, and is seen in the works in the room, the multiple yellow thobes, gym equipment and in the central video Makwah Man.

The central work in the show is a three-channel video Makwah Man. On an immersive projection a man is depicted endlessly ironing metres of pantone yellow cloth in his pantone yellow satin thobe on top of a dune in the middle of the desert, reciting paternalistic, positive aphorisms. The yellow thobes are repeated in another installation With the People, you Blondie where 150 identical thobes are maneuvered by a machine in a seemingly endless loop.

Makwah Man, 2020, Three-channel video

The video can be viewed from The Outdoor Health Club , referencing the proliferation of exercise equipment in public spaces all over the Kingdom. The fitness machines become active viewing ‘seats’ and viewers must adjust their bodies and adapt their movements.

The iron is exactly that, a yellow iron, and it stands conspicuously on a pedestal, spotlit in a central point in the exhibition. At first sight, the iron is seemingly innocent, but as you approach, this reified object begins to to communicate with you. Other speaking objects in the show include the grumpy Falcons in the video installation What is This, skeptical and outrageous they interject and punctuate the space.

The various fitness machines, the singing iron and moving mechanic racks, offer disarming takes on how we have humanised technology, all the while being subjected to these technologies and becoming more machine like in our ways of thinking, responding and being.

With the People, You Blondie 2020, Installation

What is This, 2020

Two-channel video animation.

The most important thing is today This moment this moment this moment This moment, see This moment is what is important This moment, Tomorrow is not important But the thing is Tomorrow is coming Tomorrow is coming and we don’t know what to do

Makwah Man, 2020, Three-channel video

Ahaad Alamoudi

(b.1991, Jeddah, KSA) raised between England and Saudi Arabia, lives and works in Jeddah. Travelling between the two kingdoms, Ahaad’s work addresses history and representation. She graduated from Dar Al Hekma University in Jeddah with a BA in Visual Communication in 2014 and graduated with an MA in Print from the Royal College of Art in 2017. In her research about Saudi’s reforming ethnography, Ahaad’s photography, video and print installations aim at altering the historical rendition of Saudi Arabia.

Ahaad’s group shows include: Colour Bar, Maraya Art Center, Sharjah (2019), Screens Series, New Museum, NYC (2019). Public/Private, Historical Jeddah (2019), Out of Place, Athr Gallery, Jeddah (2019), Al Obour, SAC, Jeddah (2019). Young Arab Exhibition, ArtX, NYC (2018), MANWAR, Hafez Gallery, Jeddah (2018). Refusing to be Still, SAC, Jeddah (2018). The Parallel Kingdom exhibition at the Station Museum in Houston, The Generation exhibition at Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco and in the Phantom Punch exhibition at Bates College of Art in Lewiston, Maine (2017 & 2016). We Need to Talk, Edge of Arabia, Jeddah (2012), Young Saudi Artists, Athr Gallery, Jeddah (2012)

She has been featured in a film on the Guardian about the power of artists confronting Islamophobia in Saudi Arabia. In 2018, Ahaad was the recipient of the Crossway Foundation x Middle East Now Festival Residency in Florence.

Amal Khalaf

Amal Khalaf is a Bahraini-Singaporean curator and artist and currently Director of Programmes at Cubitt Gallery, London and Projects Curator at the Serpentine Galleries, London where she has worked on the Edgware Road Project since its inception in 2009. Here and in other contexts she has commissioned and developed residencies, exhibitions, workshops and collaborative research projects that address the role of art operating within pedagogy and social urgencies. She is a founding member of artist collective GCC, as well as a trustee for not/no.w.here and on the artistic committee for Arts Catalyst. In 2016 she co-directed the 10th edition of the Global Art Forum, Art Dubai. Amal’s work has been presented at Goldsmiths College, London; Venice Biennial, MoMA PS1, NY; New Museum, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Musee D’Art Moderne, Paris; The Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; Serralves, Porto; amongst others in educational and cultural contexts.

About Athr

Since its inception in Jeddah in 2009, Athr Gallery has played a pivotal role in building the Contemporary art scene in Saudi; valuing experimentation and the exploration of new ideas, disseminating the artists’ role in the creative process and the impact they can have on societies.

As a relentless supporter of young as well as established artists from Saudi Arabia and the Arab region, Athr has been providing a number of opportunities for furthering knowledge and experience within its multidisciplinary space in Jeddah and beyond, such as international residencies, special commissions, international group exhibitions, symposia, funding and more.

Founded by Hamza Serafi and Mohammed Hafiz, whose passion and network allow Athr to have a deeply engaged discourse in the local art scene, they have taken on the initiative of filling the absence of public art institutions, museums and art schools to establish a sustainable art scene open to the world all while having an international presence.

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