Mother of Fog

In what could be considered a follow up to Al Qasimi’s 2020 work Mother of Fire, she once again invokes the figure of the jinn (spirits in Islamic mythology) to explore the ghosts of British imperialism in the UAE. As its spectre lingers on the horizon, two teenage girls seek to liberate a pirate damned to spend purgatory on a site now being developed into a hotel. Originally commissioned for Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present, Al Qasimi entangles historical narratives with contemporary notions of piracy. In examining how it has been historically and culturally represented, new perspectives of old mythographies come into focus. (Myriam Mouflih)

Farah Al Qasimi (b. 1991, Abu Dhabi) is an artist working primarily with photography, video and performance, examining postcolonial structures of power, gender and taste in the Gulf Arab states. Dividing her time between Dubai and New York, she has integrated her practice as a social critique and observation of the layered aspects of each place. She studied photography and music at Yale University in 2012 and received her MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2017. Selected solo exhibitions include; Delfina Foundation, London; Plug in Institute of Contemporary Art, Winnipeg; Poltergeist, C/O Berlin; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; The Rencontres d’Arles, Arles, France (2021); and The Third Line, Dubai. Selected group exhibitions include KADIST, Paris (2023); LA County Museum of Art; Pera Museum, Istanbul; and Lahore Biennale.

Um Al Dhabaab (Mother of Fog) (2023), Surge (2022), The Swarm (2021)