“I thought ‘sah’ ['correct' in English] would be the best word to experiment with. I took my time, but it turned out to be the messiest and most frustrating one,” says Emirati artist Shamma Al Amri, as she points to a large, framed paper with the Arabic word written in ink over and over again in asymmetrical rows. It is the opening piece of her new solo exhibition, So to Speak, at Tashkeel.
It's a word that has various meanings for native Arabic speakers. It’s also a word that consumed Al Amri entirely for most of this year. One that she has explored in all its facets in her new body of work, spanning a diversity of mediums, from metal and wood to paper, prints and layers of plexiglass with writing embossed on each.
Al Amri, who is the 14th participant to present a solo exhibition as part of Taskeel’s Critical Practice Programme, has focused her entire collection on studying the Arabic language. By examining and analysing text found in her surroundings, she not only endeavours to extract its social, political and collective value, but sees it as a path to find a way back to her mother tongue.
So to Speak builds on her ongoing exploration of the power that words hold in different contexts and experimentation with the visual representation of language. While developing the works, she was mentored by typographer, writer and graphic designer Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFares and Emirati artist Mohammed Kazem.
“I’m really interested in how language affects our function in society. Some languages have specific words that do not exist in other languages, so we can only imagine what input it has in the way a person interacts with the world," she says.
"The other entry point to my work is the extraction of myself and the Arabic language from the contemporary arts landscape, which is predominantly English and western-speaking,” says the multidisciplinary artist, who has master's degrees in culture and creative industries, and contemporary art practice from the Royal College of Art in London.
But the fixation with the word ‘sah’ began with the UAE’s national oath, she says, as she points to a plexiglass block that has Arabic sentences laid over one another, rendering them illegible. This is The Artist’s Oath, a condensed representation of her two-year research into the country’s oath, and a distillation of defining words, such as correct, truth and loyalty, which citizens commit to.
“As an artist, I wanted to see where I sit and whether I am bound by an oath. I started my research to unpack how this impacts my practice,” she says.
“I presented it in a transparent way to say: here are all the ways I’m trying to decipher language and meaning, but then you look closely and all you see is nothing but a web of words, flipping the entire thing on its head.”
There’s an inherent conflict in what Al Amri is trying to achieve. She’s trying to impose self-discipline and “correctness” in her method, while questioning what it looks like in all her works. Her Correct series of calligraphy reed and ink on paper is an exercise in evoking emotion with every ‘sah’ that she painstakingly etches.
“I wanted to perfectly repeat the word on a plain paper with no lines until the ink ran dry, but every ‘sah’ created a different ‘sah’. It became meditative and turned into a psychological investigation,” says Al Amri, who mainly works with root words in the Arabic language.
Root words, she says, create a whole network of meanings that feed into one another.
Take her Diction series, six pieces of dyed newspaper with the word ‘sah’ cut out from each one to allow light to pass through. This is a visual and metaphorical statement on the word denoting truth, one that is upheld by a sahifah (Arabic for page/newspaper) and a sahafiun (Arabic for journalist), both words that have ‘sah’ in them.
She then applies her experiment to a social setting by engaging inmates of The Punitive and Correctional Institute in Dubai to create hand-cut wood sculptures of the word ‘sah’ and construction workers to mould rebar rods into it.
“With the inmates, I wanted to see how they’d interpret and create it in their own style," she says. "What I found was that they could not escape the prescribed template, or the correct way of doing it, and ended up with very similar designs. They took an order and did not exercise any freedom.”
With the construction workers, she found that every time they attempted to model the rods into a ‘sah’, the repetition only resulted in the collapse of the correctness.
“It’s a very telling outcome because in both instances, the creators need to follow a norm in their daily work, whereas as an artist you don’t,” she says.
As part of the exhibition programme, Al Amri will lead tours, talks, poetry evenings and workshops at Tashkeel to provide an in-depth perspective of her works.
Lisa Ball-Lechgar, the deputy director of Tashkeel, says that this exhibition underscores Al Amri's commitment to learning and her extensive research into language and its expression through art.
“With such a powerful range of works produced during her year on Tashkeel’s Critical Practice Programme, the impact of this sort of support for the UAE’s creative community is tangible," she says.
So to Speak is on show at Taskheel until October 18. For more information, visit tashkeel.org
Brief scoreline
Switzerland 0
England 0
Result: England win 6-5 on penalties
Man of the Match: Trent Alexander-Arnold (England)
The biog
Family: wife, four children, 11 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren
Reads: Newspapers, historical, religious books and biographies
Education: High school in Thatta, a city now in Pakistan
Regrets: Not completing college in Karachi when universities were shut down following protests by freedom fighters for the British to quit India
Happiness: Work on creative ideas, you will also need ideals to make people happy
Ticket prices
General admission Dh295 (under-three free)
Buy a four-person Family & Friends ticket and pay for only three tickets, so the fourth family member is free
Buy tickets at: wbworldabudhabi.com/en/tickets
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: EdTech
Funding to date: $15 million
RACECARD
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Ireland (15-1):
Ireland (15-1): Rob Kearney; Keith Earls, Chris Farrell, Bundee Aki, Jacob Stockdale; Jonathan Sexton, Conor Murray; Jack Conan, Sean O'Brien, Peter O'Mahony; James Ryan, Quinn Roux; Tadhg Furlong, Rory Best (capt), Cian Healy
Replacements: Sean Cronin, Dave Kilcoyne, Andrew Porter, Ultan Dillane, Josh van der Flier, John Cooney, Joey Carbery, Jordan Larmour
Coach: Joe Schmidt (NZL)
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'Skin'
Dir: Guy Nattiv
Starring: Jamie Bell, Danielle McDonald, Bill Camp, Vera Farmiga
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
KEY%20DATES%20IN%20AMAZON'S%20HISTORY
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Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
How to apply for a drone permit
- Individuals must register on UAE Drone app or website using their UAE Pass
- Add all their personal details, including name, nationality, passport number, Emiratis ID, email and phone number
- Upload the training certificate from a centre accredited by the GCAA
- Submit their request
What are the regulations?
- Fly it within visual line of sight
- Never over populated areas
- Ensure maximum flying height of 400 feet (122 metres) above ground level is not crossed
- Users must avoid flying over restricted areas listed on the UAE Drone app
- Only fly the drone during the day, and never at night
- Should have a live feed of the drone flight
- Drones must weigh 5 kg or less
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
Voy!%20Voy!%20Voy!
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Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
Company%20Profile
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The line up
Friday: Giggs, Sho Madjozi and Masego
Saturday: Nas, Lion Bbae, Roxanne Shante and DaniLeigh
Sole DXB runs from December 6 to 8 at Dubai Design District. Weekend pass is Dh295 while a one day pass is Dh195. Tickets are available from www.soledxb.com
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
MATCH INFO
UAE Division 1
Abu Dhabi Harlequins 12-24 Abu Dhabi Saracens
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
