Shattered Carcasses and Architecture of the Forsaken, 2009

Zineb Sedira
Shattered Carcasses and Architecture of the Forsaken, 2009
18 light boxes, 120 x 90 cm each; overall dimensions variable
Installation view: Sharjah Art Foundation - Al Mureijah Square, 2018
Courtesy of kamel mennour, Paris/London.
Image courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation.

Overview

Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) presents a major survey exhibition of Zineb Sedira’s work, spanning three galleries in SAF’s Al Mureijah Square. For over 17 years, Sedira has explored notions of family, tradition, oral history, migration and the intergenerational transmission of knowledge, often through a personal lens. Although these concerns have recently become the focus of wider public attention, the artist has long underscored the enduring existence of these issues in her work.

In order to expand understanding of the artist’s practice and its development, the exhibition will feature a number of Sedira’s well-known works. Mother Tongue (2002) portrays the struggle to find a common language in which to share knowledge and experience across time and space. Saphir (2006) explores the notion of return, and the multichannel video Image Keepers (2010) revolves around Sedira’s conversations with the widow of a prominent photographer, who devoted himself to documenting the Algerian revolution. The exhibition also includes rarely seen videos, such as The End of the Road (2010), and recent sculpture and installation.

Together with her previous work, the exhibition will present two new commissions. In her installation Sunken Stories, Sedira focuses on the wooden dhows that have long facilitated trade to and from the Arabian Gulf as she ponders how places are shaped by the movement of people, goods and culture across the sea. In Air Affairs, Sedira contemplates the Emirate of Sharjah through its historic British Imperial Airways (BIA) airport. She retraces the BIA route from London to Sharjah to Karachi and creates a travelogue informed by her journey. Her new installation, Laughter in Hell, is an expansion of Sedira’s long-running interest in traditions of oral history, and more profoundly, the performative transmission of knowledge across generations. Examining the dark humour that emerged during Algeria’s ‘black decade’ (1991–2001), a period of internal war resulting in the deaths of an estimated 200,000 people, this work considers how joke telling becomes a way for trauma to be emotionally assimilated within society. In the face of ever-present violence, laughter becomes a political, spiritual and palliative practice of resistance.

This exhibition is curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, Director, Sharjah Art Foundation.

Sunken Stories

Zineb Sedira
2018

Object installation (6 Wooden boats, resin, stainless steel and steel reinforcement bars), dimensions variable. Detail view: Sharjah Art Foundation - Al Mureijah Square, 2018. Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation. Image courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation.

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Sunken Stories Image

Tracer un territoire (Tracing a Territory)

Zineb Sedira
2018

Red topographic thread on wall & spool. Part of the video installation Tracing a Territory. © Zineb Sedira. Installation view: Sharjah Art Foundation - Al Mureijah Square, 2018. Courtesy the artist and Kamel mennour, Paris. Image courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation.

Tracer un territoire (Tracing a Territory) Image

Air Affairs

Zineb Sedira
2018

Installation of various objects and customised 1930s suitcase, dimensions variable. Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation. Installation view: Sharjah Art Foundation - Al Mureijah Square, 2018. Courtesy of kamel mennour, Paris/London and The Third Line, Dubai. Image courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation.

Air Affairs Image

Air Affairs

Zineb Sedira
2018

Installation of black and white photography, and globe, dimensions variable. Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation. Installation view: Sharjah Art Foundation - Al Mureijah Square, 2018. Courtesy of kamel mennour, Paris/London and The Third Line, Dubai. Image courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation.

Air Affairs Image

Mother Tongue, Mother and I (France), Daughter and I (England), Grandmother and Granddaughter (Algeria)

Zineb Sedira
2002

3-channel video, 5 minutes each. Installation view: Sharjah Art Foundation - Al Mureijah Square, 2018. Courtesy of kamel mennour, Paris/London. Image courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation

Mother Tongue, Mother and I (France), Daughter and I (England), Grandmother and Granddaughter (Algeria) Image

Sugar Routes II

Zineb Sedira
2018

2 cane sugar objects, 31 x 21 cm (anchor) and 11 x 23 cm (propeller). Installation view: Sharjah Art Foundation - Al Mureijah Square, 2018. Courtesy of The Third Line Gallery, Dubai. Image courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation

Sugar Routes II Image

Gardiennes d'images (Image Keepers)

Zineb Sedira
2010

Video projection, two parts: part 1: two- channel color and black and white video projection, with sound; part 2: color video projection, with sound, 19 min; 30 min, 50 sec, dimensions variable. Installation view: Sharjah Art Foundation - Al Mureijah Square, 2018. Courtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Image courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation

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Gardiennes d'images (Image Keepers) Image

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