In a far-off vista in the UK's Cornwall, fluffy pillows are piled high on top of one another making a four-metre-tall stack. Though it seems precarious, the blustery Cornish wind doesn’t ruffle any fabric or dislodge any cushions.
As aficionados of Shaikha Al Mazrou’s art might have guessed, the work is an illusion. The stack is made of fibreglass and resin, secured by an internal steel armature, and has been confounding and delighting visitors to Cornwall since it arrived late last month.
Red Stack first appeared at Frieze Sculpture last year, the public exhibition of artworks that the Frieze fair hosts in Regent’s Park, London. It is the largest sculpture that Dubai artist Al Mazrou, who teaches at NYU Abu Dhabi, has made, and her second major foray into public artwork.
Since then, Red Stack has travelled 482km to the south-western tip of the UK, where it has now taken pride of place in the idiosyncratic, thoughtfully arrayed grounds of the Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens.
Tremenheere's history dates back to the medieval ages, when it was owned by the monks who lived on the nearby island of St Michael’s Mount. The order sold the grounds in 1295 to the farmer Michael De Tremenheere, whose family lived on the land for 600 years and planted trees such as beech, oak, sweet chestnut and holly.
In 1997, Irish doctor Neil Armstrong and his wife, Jane Martin, became the third owners of the site, transforming it into a sculpture park and cultural centre. They built a cafe and a gallery, and now host rotating exhibitions as well as works by artists such as James Turrell, Richard Long, David Nash and Dorothy Cross.
Unlike most sculpture parks, however, the landscape and the art are given equal attention. Armstrong collects both art and vulnerable and disparate seeds and varietals. The two elements have to work together, he says – making the commissioning process an active negotiation.
“The artists have to earn their place – they can't just turn up and flounce around,” says Armstrong, who grew up on a farm in Ireland before heading to boarding school. “They have to bring something to the party. Their work has to embellish and work with what's around them. It may be something whimsical, something profound, or a directional prompt – but not just showing work for the sake of it. It has to fulfil this criterion of being in some sort of collusion with the landscape.”
The collaborative ethos has resulted in works that often wonderfully deviate from established series. The British land artist Richard Long, for example, made one of his well-known “lines” in the gardens. Unlike his renowned A Line Made by Walking (1967), for which Long flattened out a line on a field in Wiltshire, the Tremenheere line exists in positive space: in which he planted a sequence of tall flowering grass, allowing the work to grow organically.
Armstrong was lucky to work early on with one of the pioneers of Land Art, US artist James Turrell. In 1999, Turrell was looking for a place to observe the solar eclipse, and Tremenheere happens to sit on the eclipse's centre line.
“It was pure serendipity,” Armstrong recalls.
Turrell created a domed space in which one could observe the solar phenomenon, which remained at Tremenheere for three months. By the time it opened, the pair had hit it off, and Turrell agreed to make a permanent work for the little-known gardens.
He ended up creating two: Skyspaces – a series of chambers with an aperture in the ceiling opening out to the sky – and Aqua Oscura, which is unique in his canon of works. Situated in an underground cistern at the property, Aqua Oscura is constructed as a camera obscura. Light enters the chamber through a pinhole aperture, falling on a mirror below that redirects the beam at a 45-degree angle on to a wall of the underground tank.
"As dormant nerve pathways within the brain awaken, an image appears," explains Armstrong. "Initially [this is] a grey, indistinct light, but gradually a more detailed and focused view of the tree canopy above emerges. The image changes with the seasons as the tree canopy – ash – develops and then drops its foliage."
Though Red Stack was not a Tremenheere commission, Armstrong and his team spent days scouting locations where it would fit. The concerns were partly logistical. Al Mazrou's work is so monumental that it has to be installed on level ground. They also took note of the richness of the colour and the imposing, but familiar, aspect of the stacked pillows. In the end, they chose a high meadow, flanked by open sky and bright greenery.
It will remain in situ for at least a year, before travelling onwards again. Tremenheere operates with no external funding, and Al Mazrou's work is only there until it finds a permanent buyer.
"In some ways, it's good that things go, because it leaves room for something else," says Armstrong. "I don't want to be a museum and that's one of the reasons why I only work with living artists.
“I'm not really in the art world, I slipped somewhere in the ether," he says. "I don't have any professional training. I don't interact with any of the grand institutions. I'm free of all that. And I think that's really good. I’m in the art world in the sense that I'm just like everyone else walking down the street, who can have a look and decide what they think.”
In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
U19 WORLD CUP, WEST INDIES
UAE group fixtures (all in St Kitts)
- Saturday 15 January: UAE beat Canada by 49 runs
- Thursday 20 January: v England
- Saturday 22 January: v Bangladesh
UAE squad:
Alishan Sharafu (captain), Shival Bawa, Jash Giyanani, Sailles
Jaishankar, Nilansh Keswani, Aayan Khan, Punya Mehra, Ali Naseer, Ronak Panoly,
Dhruv Parashar, Vinayak Raghavan, Soorya Sathish, Aryansh Sharma, Adithya
Shetty, Kai Smith
The%20specs
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WITHIN%20SAND
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Essentials
The flights
Emirates flies direct from Dubai to Seattle from Dh6,755 return in economy and Dh24,775 in business class.
The cruise
UnCruise Adventures offers a variety of small-ship cruises in Alaska and around the world. A 14-day Alaska’s Inside Passage and San Juans Cruise from Seattle to Juneau or reverse costs from $4,695 (Dh17,246), including accommodation, food and most activities. Trips in 2019 start in April and run until September.
Springtime in a Broken Mirror,
Mario Benedetti, Penguin Modern Classics
Skoda Superb Specs
Engine: 2-litre TSI petrol
Power: 190hp
Torque: 320Nm
Price: From Dh147,000
Available: Now
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Tottenham 0-1 Ajax, Tuesday
Second leg
Ajax v Tottenham, Wednesday, May 8, 11pm
Game is on BeIN Sports
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
STAGE 4 RESULTS
1 Sam Bennett (IRL) Deceuninck-QuickStep - 4:51:51
2 David Dekker (NED) Team Jumbo-Visma
3 Caleb Ewan (AUS) Lotto Soudal
4 Elia Viviani (ITA) Cofidis
5 Matteo Moschetti (ITA) Trek-Segafredo
General Classification
1 Tadej Pogacar (SLO) UAE Team Emirates - 12:50:21
2 Adam Yates (GBR) Teamn Ineos Grenadiers - 0:00:43
3 Joao Almeida (POR) Deceuninck-QuickStep - 0:01:03
4 Chris Harper (AUS) Jumbo-Visma - 0:01:43
5 Neilson Powless (USA) EF Education-Nippo - 0:01:45
RESULTS
6.30pm Handicap (TB) $68,000 (Dirt) 1,200m
Winner Canvassed, Par Dobbs (jockey), Doug Watson (trainer)
7.05pm Meydan Cup – Listed Handicap (TB) $88,000 (Turf) 2,810m
Winner Dubai Future, Frankie Dettori, Saeed bin Suroor
7.40pm UAE 2000 Guineas – Group 3 (TB) $125,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner Mouheeb, Ryan Curatolo, Nicholas Bachalard
8.15pm Firebreak Stakes – Group 3 (TB) $130,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner Secret Ambition, Tadhg O’Shea, Satish Seemar
9.50pm Meydan Classic – Conditions (TB) $$50,000 (T) 1,400m
Winner Topper Bill, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
9.25pm Dubai Sprint – Listed Handicap (TB) $88,000 (T) 1,200m
Winner Man Of Promise, William Buick, Charlie Appleby
'Outclassed in Kuwait'
Taleb Alrefai,
HBKU Press
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Like a Fading Shadow
Antonio Muñoz Molina
Translated from the Spanish by Camilo A. Ramirez
Tuskar Rock Press (pp. 310)
Wayne Rooney's career
Everton (2002-2004)
- Appearances: 48
- Goals: 17
Manchester United (2004-2017)
- Appearances: 496
- Goals: 253
England (2003-)
- Appearances: 119
- Goals: 53
SPEC%20SHEET%3A%20SAMSUNG%20GALAXY%20S23%20ULTRA
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At Eternity’s Gate
Director: Julian Schnabel
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Oscar Isaacs, Mads Mikkelsen
Three stars
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
No more lice
Defining head lice
Pediculus humanus capitis are tiny wingless insects that feed on blood from the human scalp. The adult head louse is up to 3mm long, has six legs, and is tan to greyish-white in colour. The female lives up to four weeks and, once mature, can lay up to 10 eggs per day. These tiny nits firmly attach to the base of the hair shaft, get incubated by body heat and hatch in eight days or so.
Identifying lice
Lice can be identified by itching or a tickling sensation of something moving within the hair. One can confirm that a person has lice by looking closely through the hair and scalp for nits, nymphs or lice. Head lice are most frequently located behind the ears and near the neckline.
Treating lice at home
Head lice must be treated as soon as they are spotted. Start by checking everyone in the family for them, then follow these steps. Remove and wash all clothing and bedding with hot water. Apply medicine according to the label instructions. If some live lice are still found eight to 12 hours after treatment, but are moving more slowly than before, do not re-treat. Comb dead and remaining live lice out of the hair using a fine-toothed comb.
After the initial treatment, check for, comb and remove nits and lice from hair every two to three days. Soak combs and brushes in hot water for 10 minutes.Vacuum the floor and furniture, particularly where the infested person sat or lay.
Courtesy Dr Vishal Rajmal Mehta, specialist paediatrics, RAK Hospital
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder MHEV
Power: 360bhp
Torque: 500Nm
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Price: from Dh282,870
On sale: now
if you go
The flights
Air Astana flies direct from Dubai to Almaty from Dh2,440 per person return, and to Astana (via Almaty) from Dh2,930 return, both including taxes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Ritz-Carlton Almaty cost from Dh1,944 per night including taxes; and in Astana the new Ritz-Carlton Astana (www.marriott) costs from Dh1,325; alternatively, the new St Regis Astana costs from Dh1,458 per night including taxes.
When to visit
March-May and September-November
Visas
Citizens of many countries, including the UAE do not need a visa to enter Kazakhstan for up to 30 days. Contact the nearest Kazakhstan embassy or consulate.
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
- Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
- Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
- Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
- Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
- Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
- Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)
Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits
Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Storage: 128/256/512GB
Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4
Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps
Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID
Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight
In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter
Price: From Dh2,099
