In her new exhibition at an arts centre in Scotland, Sukaina Kubba inserts herself into the lineage of rug weavers, transforming age-old floral and geometric design into fragile, rubbery latex matrices.
The Baghdad-born artist grew up in Abu Dhabi, studied in Montreal and now lives in Toronto. In between she was a lecturer and curator at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland from 2013 to 2018 and has exhibited her work in Canada and the UK.
Her latest work, on display at Dundee Contemporary Arts, comes from a residency in the institute's print studio, where she delved into Scotland’s history of rug making.
As industrialisation grew in the 1800s, a number of factories in Scotland turned to manufacturing rugs for a newly developing middle-class market as well as ocean liners, hotels, and new building projects across the country.
Their ability to machine-produce the carpets displaced the cottage industries of rug production in Iran, India and what is now Kurdish and federal Iraq. Yet many of the carpets still used Persian rugs as the basis of their design.
Factories such as Stoddard & Co and James Templeton & Co would send people down to the V & Museum in London, for instance, where they would trace Persian rugs in the museum collection. These watercolour tracings were then brought back to Scotland, where they were mass-produced and sold at cheaper cost.
Kubba’s research culminated in Turn Me Into a Flower, which she opened last week at Dundee Contemporary Arts, a non-profit centre in the Scottish city of Dundee. Kubba had been working with Tiffany Boyle, who recently took up the post as head of exhibitions in Dundee and put together Kubba’s exhibition as curator.
Echoing the process of transference, Kubba has retraced the designs from what is now the Stoddard Templeton collection, as well as rugs from her family and other types that she has become interested in. She has produced them in soft latex via 3D printing.
Unlike the way that these rugs have been produced for thousands of years, Kubba has taken out the human maker. Instead, she has brought computers into the mix, though even here she works to allow the technology to have a degree of control over the process. After uploading the design, she speeds up the 3D printing process so that the printer must try to withstand the new speed, creating glitches and random effects in the final product.
The results are eerie weaves that she hangs on the wall. They carry the un-naturalism of computer-generated work, as if an early iteration of the Matrix from the popular film had tried to produce woven carpets. There's also a sense of fragility, with gaps in the soft filament showing through the bare bones designs.
“I’m interested in the process of the transformation of the image and the object,” says Kubba. “When they started making the rugs in Scotland, there was a sense of both transportation and transformation of these carpets. Now I'm taking these drawings and traces and transforming them again.”
Rugs as history
Kubba has been experimenting with the rug designs for a number of years, though this is the first direct research into the commercial workings of Victorian Scotland. Her fascination stems in part from the history of rugs as elements of migration – a craft form that began in the Middle East and subsequently travelled, as did her family, from East to West. The itinerancy, she notes, is embedded into the form of the rug itself, which is designed to be rolled up and easily transported.
But she also looks at rugs as storytellers. A few years ago Kubba grew obsessed, she says, by one particular type of Persian rug, called senneh, which are typically hand knotted and designed as they are produced, rather than worked from a template. Because of this organic method of production, their intricate floral designs often slip from the grid or contain mistakes.
“Sometimes I imagine that there are two or three women who made them,” she says, “And there’s bits of them that are quirky. It’s very hard to explain, but through remaking them I feel I understand the maker who created – say – the zig-zaggy squiggles that form the edges of the diamonds or the borders of the work. It’s an aesthetic choice, but it’s also the way someone's hand works.”
For Kubba, the senneh designs reveal the stories of their making – much like her 3D printing technique introduces its own idiosyncrasy into the process.
The carpets also have their own hidden relation to industrialisation. Much like Victorian Scotland’s wealth derived from new means of production, Kubba also explores new techniques in manufacturing – taking the elements of 3D printing and working through what an artist might do with them.
She tried for a long time to create a drawing, she says, that one could pull off a wall – until a fellow artist told her about 3D pens, or pens that “write” in latex filament. It was by experimenting with these new materials that she realised what she was creating was new woven wall pieces – which only then led her to investigate the rugs that she had grown up with, in Abu Dhabi and Toronto. (One of the works not in the show is based on her brother’s carpet, which she remembers playing marbles on.)
But now she says, the works have returned despite themselves to the look and feel of textiles. “Even though the material is plasticky, they have an embroidered and woven feeling to them,” she says. “Some of them look like velvet – like they’ve started as a watercolour and a text and then been transformed back to something tactile and soft.”
Sukaina Kubba’s Turn Me Into a Flower runs at Dundee Contemporary Arts until August 4.
RACE CARD
5pm: Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 1,400m
5.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh70,000 1,000m
6pm: Maiden (PA) Dh70,000 2,000m
6.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 2,000m
7pm: Maiden (PA) Dh70,000 1,600m
7.30pm: Al Ain Mile Group 3 (PA) Dh350,000 1,600m
8pm: Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 1,600m
Amith's selections:
5pm: AF Sail
5.30pm: Dahawi
6pm: Taajer
6.30pm: Pharitz Oubai
7pm: Winked
7.30pm: Shahm
8pm: Raniah
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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RACE CARD
6.30pm Maiden Dh165,000 (Dirt) 1,200
7.05pm Handicap Dh165,000 (D) 1,600m
7.40pm Maiden Dh165,000 (D) 1,600m
8.15pm Handicap Dh190,000 (D) 1,600m
8.50pm Handicap Dh175,000 (D) 1,400m
9.25pm Handicap Dh175,000 (D) 2,000m
The National selections:
6.30pm Underwriter
7.05pm Rayig
7.40pm Torno Subito
8.15pm Talento Puma
8.50pm Etisalat
9.25pm Gundogdu
UAE tour of Zimbabwe
All matches in Bulawayo
Friday, Sept 26 – UAE won by 36 runs
Sunday, Sept 28 – Second ODI
Tuesday, Sept 30 – Third ODI
Thursday, Oct 2 – Fourth ODI
Sunday, Oct 5 – First T20I
Monday, Oct 6 – Second T20I
German intelligence warnings
- 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
- 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
- 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250
Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
RESULTS
5pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 1,200m
Winner: Ferdous, Szczepan Mazur (jockey), Ibrahim Al Hadhrami (trainer)
5.30pm: Arabian Triple Crown Round-3 Group 3 (PA) Dh300,000 2,400m
Winner: Basmah, Fabrice Veron, Eric Lemartinel
6pm: UAE Arabian Derby Prestige (PA) Dh150,000 2,200m
Winner: Ihtesham, Szczepan Mazur, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami
6.30pm: Emirates Championship Group 1 (PA) Dh1,000,000 2,200m
Winner: Somoud, Patrick Cosgrave, Ahmed Al Mehairbi
7pm: Abu Dhabi Championship Group 3 (TB) Dh380,000 2,200m
Winner: GM Hopkins, Patrick Cosgrave, Jaber Ramadhan
7.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Conditions (PA) Dh70,000 1,600m
Winner: AF Al Bairaq, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
MATCH INFO
World Cup qualifier
Thailand 2 (Dangda 26', Panya 51')
UAE 1 (Mabkhout 45 2')
Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
Company%C2%A0profile
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE%20PREMIERSHIP
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The specs: 2018 Mercedes-AMG C63 S Cabriolet
Price, base: Dh429,090
Engine 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission Seven-speed automatic
Power 510hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque 700Nm @ 1,750rpm
Fuel economy, combined 9.2L / 100km
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
TO%20CATCH%20A%20KILLER
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