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DOHA: Positioned in Qatar’s expansive Al-Thakhira Mangrove Reserve, about 64 km northeast from the capital Doha, are 12 site-specific installations created by Icelandic Danish artist Olafur Eliasson.
The artist’s non permanent pavilions glisten within the desert daylight and seemingly talk with the pure phenomena round them — wind, solar and sand.
They’re a part of Eliasson’s first-ever solo exhibition within the Gulf going down throughout the desert panorama and on the Nationwide Museum of Qatar all beneath the title “The Curious Desert.” The works on present on the museum span a wide range of intervals from Eliasson’s profession, one which has persistently seemed to make use of up to date artwork as a platform to debate essential points associated to the fragility of the pure surroundings within the local weather disaster age.
On the Al-Thakhira Mangrove Reserve, every station consists of a round construction and lined with cloth that flaps within the wind. “Your Obsidian Backyard” incorporates black, shiny obsidian that instantly contrasts with the colour of the desert sands. The work, impressed by Eliasson’s hikes by way of volcanic obsidian fields within the Icelandic highlands, nearly appears to have erupted from the bottom. In one other, “Photo voltaic Incense Burner,” a single glass sphere makes use of solar rays to ignite a wide range of scents inherent to Qatar and the encompassing Gulf area, resembling oud, musk and amber. Every scent burns for precisely one hour, itself functioning like a clock marking the occasions of the day by way of scent.
“The works reply to the desert and to nature but additionally ourselves inside that relationship as nicely,” Eliasson informed Arab Information.
Whereas the primary of the three outside artworks look at optical phenomena and man’s relationship with nature by way of shadows, rainbows and mirrors that create highly effective and alluring results, installations quantity 5 by way of seven incorporate revolutionary drawing machines that use components from the sabkha habitat in Qatar to create artworks that may later be proven at Eliasson’s exhibition on the Nationwide Museum of Qatar.
“These artworks are a approach to focus on what geopolitics doesn’t say — it’s a approach to join near native tradition and to the pure surroundings,” the artist mentioned.
The ultimate three artworks merge pure phenomena from different areas of the world with these present in Qatar, together with obsidian and glacial mud from Iceland.
“It’s a unprecedented alternative to create artworks for the sabkha close to Al-Thakhira Mangrove Reserve,” the artist mentioned in a press release. “The solar, the wind, the close by lagoon saltwater — all of them assist co-produce the artworks that guests will encounter right here.”
Whereas creating the artworks, Eliasson and Qatar Museums labored with an ecologist to conduct an in-depth survey of a web site close to Al-Thakira to make sure the safety of its native vegetation and residing, non-human, beings, just like the Arabian pink fox.
“I hope the artworks additional (expose) folks to the wonder and significance of the pure panorama and the non-human businesses that work inside it,” he informed Arab Information.
“Tradition can result in change for the local weather, too,” he added. “It’s usually on the subcultural stage that civic society will be modified and enhanced, and this then pushes policymakers, the legislators after which the politicians. Tradition will be a part of the meals chain for world change.”
The museum part of the exhibition options key works reflective of Eliasson’s work and ideas over his 25-year profession.
Of notice is “The Residing Lighthouse” (2022), an set up that features broad bands of colourful gentle that wrap round a round room and alter type and shade in accordance with the actions of every customer.
There may be additionally “Analysis Map” (2019), a wall crammed with analysis and concepts akin to that of map charting the artist’s reflections and inspirations over current years.
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