Mendeel Um A7mad (N x I x S x M)

January 23rd, 2012

Mendeel Um A7mad (N x I x S x M) is a multimedia installation by Fatima Al Qadiri and Khalid al Gharaballi, to be exhibited at Contemporary Art Platform Kuwait (CAP) in Kuwait. The project presents the tissue box as an unlikely Kuwaiti national icon. The two-part installation consists of a film projected inside a monumental tissue box — created in collaboration with Kuwait-based designers Aziz Alqatami and Nanu Al-Hamad. The film aims to create a representation of the Chai Dhaha ritual, a traditional female forum, using an all-male cast in homage to Abdul Aziz Al-Nimish–who pioneered gender role reversal in Kuwaiti theatre.

In Mendeel Um A7mad (NxIxSxM), the Chai Dhaha ritual is set out-of-context, in a wedding ballroom to illustrate the absurd spatial conditions of post-oil boom Kuwaiti interior aesthetics, where designing to human scale took a backseat to supersized ostentation. The tissue box sculpture acts as a displaced, large-scale replica of an actual box featured in the film–a sixth “character,” performance instigator and voyeur/witness.

Exhibition open from Wednesday January 25 to Thursday February 9th, 2012
Hours: 5-9pm. Closed Fridays.

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