In Breath Count, a series of works that Ayesha Sultana begun in 2018, the Bangladeshi artist transposes her breathing as scratch marks on clay-coated paper.
The artwork, spread across three walls of Ishara Art Foundation, opens Sultana’s first comprehensive solo exhibition in the region. The exhibition, titled Fragility and Resilience, is running at Ishara Art Foundation until December 7.
The first pieces within Breath Count display clean vertical lines, giving a sense of serenity and calm. As the works progress, they become more unpredictable, spread out in some with weary ticks and frenzied and boisterous scrawls in others, perhaps alluding to coughing. The work is interesting in the way it takes an ephemeral act such as breathing and transcribes it into enduring scratches. Much like a photograph, each piece alludes to a moment.
Breath Count is an apt entry point into the exhibition. It shows the artist’s intent on exposing the balance between fragility and strength, blurring the lines of these seemingly opposite states so that they are almost the same.
The artwork also underscores the disciplined nature of Sultana’s process, at least in the context of the exhibition. The works are monumental, not for their individual size, but for the number of pieces they each contain. Their vastness is perhaps best expressed numerically. Within the nine bodies of work on show are 188 pieces. Artworks are manifested with a studious and dedicated practice, often across long periods of time. Their power and scale are in their serialisation. The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Spread out in the centre of the space is one of the newest works, and in a medium that stands out from her usual toolbox. Pools is a series of hand-blown glass pieces that are formed in imperfect orbs. Glistening with the white of the ceiling lights, the pieces seem like water droplets, air bubbles or even transparent organs. No matter the metaphor that comes to mind, Pools is evidently a transmutation of sorts. Water turned to glass, bubbles that risk being shattered or lungs that have inflated by the breath of Sultana as a glassblower.
In Inhabiting Our Bodies, Sultana uses watercolours on Japanese silk tissue to create a series of mesmerising oblong forms with hues that move across blood-like reds, again bringing organs to mind, as well as vibrant toxic greens and cosmic blues that seem like galactic peepholes. The works are displayed openly, with no glass to protect them from the viewer, giving the sensation that if you get too close, or even exhale too forcefully, you may rip the tissue.
Miasms is produced in a similar vein, with the tissues, however, thoroughly dyed in inks and presented as a seamless train enclosed in a display case. Between the two works, Sultana invites us to consider the fragility of tissue while also acknowledging it as a material that regularly makes contact with human skin. The colours, meanwhile, elevate the materiality of the tissue so we are invited to consider it as a metaphor for corporeal and even planetary fragility.
Another interesting parallel is drawn between The Blue of Distance and the large-scale oil paintings across. The former takes its cue from the bluish hues that overtake all forms and colours in the distance. Sultana evokes this with several rectangular works that simply portray a blue line across a blank page. The blues vary in hue, some even bordering on green. The paintings across meanwhile, close in the distance, augmenting and expanding these hues, from summer blues to twilight purples.
Overall, Fragility and Resilience presents a significant spread of work by an artist who explores timely themes but with a novel and poetic approach. It provokes an awareness of the body and the space it inhabits, as well as drawing a loose but evocative metaphoric connection between the workings of the human body and the larger planetary mechanism – underscoring the vulnerability and adaptability of each.
Fragility and Resilience is running at Ishara Art Foundation until December 7
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Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Favourite hobby: I love to sing but I don’t get to sing as much nowadays sadly.
Favourite book: Anything by Sidney Sheldon.
Favourite movie: The Exorcist 2. It is a big thing in our family to sit around together and watch horror movies, I love watching them.
Favourite holiday destination: The favourite place I have been to is Florence, it is a beautiful city. My dream though has always been to visit Cyprus, I really want to go there.
Countries offering golden visas
UK
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White hydrogen: Naturally occurring hydrogen
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Olivine: A commonly occurring magnesium iron silicate mineral that derives its name for its olive-green yellow-green colour
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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The candidates
Dr Ayham Ammora, scientist and business executive
Ali Azeem, business leader
Tony Booth, professor of education
Lord Browne, former BP chief executive
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Dr Mark Mann, scientist
Gina MIller, anti-Brexit campaigner
Lord Smith, former Cabinet minister
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Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
Groom and Two Brides
Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
Rating: 3/5
