3 April 2017
Sadik Kwaish Alfraiji at Maraya Art Centre
Support for commissioned work by Sadik Kwaish Alfraiji at the Maraya Art Centre
Alongside the opening of ‘Beloved Bodies II’, the Barjeel Art Foundation has commissioned a new artist work by Sadik Kwaish Alfraiji at the Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah, titled Once Upon a Time: Hadiqat al Umma. The Iraqi artist presents a panoramic multi-media installation reviving his childhood experience of Baghdad’s Hadiqat Al Umma. Although it has lost much of its beauty over the years, the park remains a vivid memory in Sadik’s mind and he uses his own visual and emotional recollections to recreate its rhythm. His beautiful drawings, which reimagine people seen there, are brought to life in black and white animations across 9 projectors. The artist’s recreation of the collective experience of this park in the 1970s belongs to his larger exploration of the loss, fragmentation and lapses in time that underline exile.
The works have been commissioned by Barjeel Art Foundation, and the exhibition is generously supported by Ayyam Gallery.
A panel discussion was held on the 4th of March with Sadik Kwaish Alfraiji and Mandy Merzaban (curator at Barjeel Art Foundation.
