During the Covid-19 pandemic, Zahra Ebrahimi Behfar, who goes by Saghi, spent her days walking along the shores and swimming among the mangroves of Qeshm, an Iran-governed island in the northern Gulf.
“I would encounter aluminium cans scattered across the sand or floating in the sea,” she tells The National. This is what inspired her latest work, Spinning Dolphin Stool, a sculptural seat made from recycled cans, which will be on show from Wednesday at Christie’s Dubai.
“The process began long before the physical work took shape,” says Behfar, who is an interior designer and creative partner at Element Curations, an art consultancy with services in Italy and the UAE, where she now lives. She started by collecting the cans herself while out on her walks and swims, but soon the community joined in. “People began saving cans for me,” she says. “I knew from the beginning I wanted to create a collection inspired by the anatomy, movement and spirit of marine creatures.”
The act of collecting was her way of turning passive observation into active engagement. She saw each dive, each piece of trash removed from the ocean, as a “small act of reciprocity in the greater cycle of the ecosystem”. A reminder that each of us has agency to protect the world around us.
Spinning Dolphin Stool is inspired by the spinner dolphin, a species known for its acrobatic spins above the water. Behfar created it by 3D-printing the form using recycled plastic to design a prototype. She then made a mould from that model, which was used to cast the final version in recycled aluminium.
“Every step was intentionally chosen to reduce environmental impact while honouring the material’s origin – waste transformed into a vessel of awareness,” says Behfar.
It is one of six pieces in a collection inspired by the Gulf’s native marine life, including the hammerhead and blacktip sharks, and the humpback whale.
“Each creature represents a part of our shared ecosystem and our forgotten connection to it,” she says. This desire to emphasise our link to our environment, as well as our collective human responsibility to preserve it, underpins the pieces.
While the series is not yet fully realised, Behfar is hoping to bring the pieces in conversation with each other in a gallery or public space soon. “The Gulf, in particular, has always been a platform for life. People would sail to trade goods like spices, dates and fabrics. They dived for pearls. They went fishing to feed their families. These waters connected distant cultures and economies – they were a lifeline. The spinner dolphins are part of that same ecosystem.”
It's a step away from the artist’s usual oeuvre, which has always been steeped in community research, but was less personal and transformative. Her work is informed by the layers of culture, nature and history, inspired by “unheard voices and forgotten stories that have quietly shaped our present”. Yet this latest project emerged not only from research, but also her own lived experience. “The connection I formed with the sea and the mangrove forests during the quiet of the pandemic was not just inspiring, it was transformative,” she says. “Every morning I woke up thinking: ‘How can I give something back?’”
In-depth research into each species and the marine environment at large was still integral to her creative process. Now she hopes to take this further as she develops the collection by working with UAE organisations that focus on the country’s environmental, cultural and ecological landscapes. “What I feel most urgently is the need to slow down and go deeper,” she adds. “To research more about our environmental and cultural heritage, to listen to the stories that live in the landscape, in the sea, and in the people who’ve been shaped by both.”
Ultimately, Spinning Dolphin Stool is not about a dolphin or a stool, adds Behfar. “It’s about the sea that has always carried our stories, our food, our dreams and our futures. The Gulf has long been a living bridge between people, languages and histories, and I want viewers to feel how much we owe to it, and how fragile that connection has become.”
Other pieces include Humpback Whale, which has been designed as bench. Behfar envisions it will sit along the UAE coastline, allowing people to take a seat as they look out at the Arabian Gulf, “not only to offer a place of rest, but also to carry the weight of the story”.
Blacktip Shark, meanwhile, is a public light sculpture that blends form and function. “Inspired by the shores of the Gulf, it’s designed to live in harmony with the land that shaped it, serving as a reminder of how deeply our urban lives are connected to nature, even in the most everyday things.”
In this way, all artists should start to see their individual practices as part of a larger ecosystem, she believes. “We are now at a critical threshold. If we don’t act, if we don’t tell these stories, protect these spaces or offer something back to the future, there may not be much left to pass on.”
