Inside Beyond Emerging Artists, from corals on sunken submarines to the poetry of poppies

The Beyond Emerging Artists exhibition is a staple of Abu Dhabi Art, providing three artists from the UAE a platform to showcase works that were developed over a year.

The projects presented, which will tour the world after the festival's end, are often ambitious in nature and scale, addressing interesting pockets of local history and wider geopolitical and cultural topics. This year is no different. The three efforts explore subjects that range from the British presence in the UAE to the symbolism of the poppy flower among Palestinians and the trails of destruction and rebirth on sea beds across the Gulf.

Beyond Emerging Artists, curated by Lorenzo Fiaschi, co-founder of Galleria Continua, spreads out into three spaces for each highlighted project. In Land, Dina Nazmi Khorchid presents photographs of landscapes on textiles. The largest work in the selection, Corporeal Echoes, Ethereal Remains, is a sprawling curtain of hemp cotton that has been dyed with the image of a body of water reflecting the shadows of a forest. The drape and fold of the curtain mimic the rippling movement of the water. “That's the beauty of the medium,” Khorchid says. “While working with textiles, I realised that I had to let the material do what it wants to do, to fold, wrinkle and stretch.”

Corporeal Echoes, Ethereal Remains borders on abstraction in its design. It imprints the poetics of curtains – their capacity to conceal and reveal – onto the landscape. “I work with the fabric in a way that resembles a curtain as an object referencing domestic space, so in relation to home, but also a barrier,” Khorchid says. "There isn't a window that lets you see beyond this point in time. In terms of the imagery of the piece, it is a reflection of trees. It depicts a fleeting moment where the trees themselves are missing. They're erased in the dark, sort of black part of the piece. Yet their remains are there. They're standing and they're saying: 'We exist'.”

The image, Khorchid notes, is her statement as a Palestinian artist thinking about the connection to land and “nature as a place of both healing and mourning". The statement echoes another body of work titled A Flower for a Martyr and a Scroll. The work comprises 48 ceramic pieces formed as poppy flowers. Each is unique in form, their petals shaped and folded by hand in what the artist says was “a very intimate experience.”

“They're placed on this narrow shelf that is displayed on a lower eye level to invite people to interact more intimately with them and see them as very fragile pieces,” she says. “The poppy is a symbol of resistance in Palestine. They have this history of being in poems and songs. People would scatter them on the tombs of martyrs or in a procession. So it's referencing that sacrifice.”

Fatma Al Ali’s Once Upon a Pirate Coast, meanwhile, explores the British presence in the UAE before the country’s unification. The three bodies of work reveal thought-provoking aspects of local history with a playful wit. Of Ships, Sails and Misguided Labels showcases 19th-century prints that depict the UK's Arabian Gulf campaign in 1809. The illustrations show British forces attacking the Qawasim fleet in Ras Al Khaimah. Three local bases as well as 80 vessels were destroyed in the attack.

Al Ali supplements the illustrations with typewritten texts that give voice to the land. One print, for instance, shows British forces destroying a coastal fort. The adjacent text reflects on the scene with poetic verve. “The red coats marched in like a blaze of honour, blending perfectly with the flames they ignited,” it reads. “Because nothing says ‘civilising’ like turning homes and ships into ash.”

I Read Their Words, But I Heard My Own features tablets, which are made of desert and beach sand, and are imprinted with excerpts of Arab and British newspaper articles. The two sources present two clashing accounts of the same history. Where one presents Sharjah as a bustling port city, the other labels it as a pirate cove. Where one celebrates the unification and birth of a new nation, the other reports that “oil states unite to survive". The body of work is a potent reflection on how perspective precedes history.

The third work, I Picked Up a Coin and Heard a Whisper, is perhaps the most eye-catching. Coins and rolled banknotes are piled in the centre of the exhibition space. The coins, Al Ali says, are actually recreations of the currency that Al Qawasim dynasty used before the arrival of the British. “I've created all seven designs, along with the paper notes,” Al Ali says. From underneath the pile of coins, a voice speaks out. Once again, it is the voice of the land.

“It is reclaiming the narrative and telling the story of how different people, different empires, try to have a claim, including the Portuguese the British and the Ottomans, who tried to have a claim but didn’t amount to anything," Al Ali says. "It shows the resilience of the land and its people.”

In Precarious Place, Simrin Mehra Agarwal delves beneath the waters of the gulf to highlight the capacity of nature to heal itself and propagate life through destruction. It is perhaps similar to Al Ali’s work in that it also amplifies the voice of the land and its resilience.

Through paintings and installations, Agarwal traces the growth of corals and underwater vegetation on sunken man-made objects and wrecks of warships. “This project is talking about how we live at an edge, and the transition between war and its effect on the environment,” Agarwal says. “It questions our understanding of nature within the context of histories of war, neglect and climate change.”

Diver and marine researcher Agarwal has spent considerable time studying the biodiversity of regional waters. One aspect that caught her attention and imagination was the wrecks of submarines, tankers and military aeroplanes underwater, which had degraded over time and were reclaimed by organic life forms. “What is actually a symbol of destruction, now becomes a symbol of hope and regeneration,” she says.

While the exhibition is replete with stunning paintings that recreate actual coral patterns, as well as videos that show Agarwal’s research, it is the large piece in the centre of the exhibition that commands the room.

The sculpture features a cylindrical form, perhaps bringing to mind a submarine, on which coral shapes have been formed by clay and resin. The corals, Agarwal notes, have been formed to reflect those found in the Gulf, which have several unique qualities.

“The corals in this region are the most resilient in the world,” she says. “There's a lot of bleaching, but in spite of the temperatures being so high, it's not been disrupted as in other areas. The brain-like form is also specific to the region, as is the colour.”

The shapes superimpose pipes and circuit boards, showing nature’s final say over the human machinery of destruction. “The man-made and the natural are coming together, becoming like this massive organic form, which is actually a creature, something that is living and pulsating with life."

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