OVERVIEW

6 weeks residency at YARAT Studios, as part of an exchange program between YARAT Contemporary Arts Space, Baku and Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Meteorology and in particular, wind, is a recurring subject matter of Al Dabbagh’s art. Her curiosity has led to her to Baku, historically called ‘Badukube’, meaning the ‘City of Wind’, due to frequent winds blowing throughout the year. After researching local mythology and visiting institutions such as the Hydro-meteorological and Weather Forecasting Bureau and Institute of Geography, she developed an installation ‘MEDIATOR | DESTROYER | REVIVER’.

Installation captures wind in three situations: as a mediator, a destroyer and as a reviver. In many cultures including the Azerbaijani, wind has been seen as the moderator between people who are separated by long distances, and the one that guides people to the right path. In Turkic mythologies, wind was mostly portrayed as a negative spirit that destroys the crops and kidnaps people. However, with the arrival of Islam to Azerbaijan and during that period, a genre of poetry about Novruz has arisen, and it mostly portrays wind as the awakener of nature and the revival. Before Novruz holiday, there is Wind Tuesday which celebrates the element of wind as the animator of the three other elements: water, fire and earth. Wind is an invisible element, and when it blows, it becomes visible through the objects it moves. In her exhibition the artist translates the essence of the wind through fabric.