Flamingos and factories: Bahrain's mythical Nabih Saleh island inspires award-winning installation

The winner of this year’s Abwab initiative, a headline feature of Dubai Design Week, spotlights Nabih Saleh, an island in Bahrain that is unique for its convergence of the natural and industrial.

Located just about three kilometres south of Manama, this island is where the mangroves, stretching from the wetlands of Tubli Bay, meet the urban landscape supporting nearby industrial zones. Here, flamingos stand in pink flamboyance over the water, surrounded by the green of mangroves that soon merge and are overtaken by beige clusters of low-rise structures at Nabih Saleh and the looming factories of Sitra.

The dichotomy is stark, fascinating but also concerning. The expanding industrial footprint threatens the biodiversity specific to the island. However, it also offers an interesting case study of how flora and fauna adapt to built environments.

Stories of the Isle and the Inlet reflects upon this fraught relationship through an installation that also nods to the island’s cultural and social aspects.

The installation, which will be unveiled during Dubai Design Week in November, was conceived by Maryam Aljomairi and Latifa Alkhayat, founders of the US-Bahrain based architecture and design platform Maraj. The duo were also the curators behind Sweating Assets, the official exhibition of the Kingdom of Bahrain during the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.

“Nabih Saleh has always been there on the periphery, but most never really care to look, spend time or understand it better,” Alkhayat says. “As you pass by on the bridge to Sitra, you see Nabih Saleh on your right. You’re entering an industrial zone on a highway with trucks and lorries, but somehow there are flocks of flamingoes and this beautiful intertidal zone.”

The marine and bird life in the area have persisted despite concentrated industrial efforts, including dredging, land reclamation and sewage activity. These changes were gradual, taking several decades, and the full scale of their impact is only just being understood.

“We were studying the site and the archival maps, the landscapes in Nabih Saleh, as well as those around it like in Tubli Bay,” Aljomairi says. “They’ve shifted over time through the anthropogenic activity. You can see how much has changed and what has disappeared in terms of species and plants, but also what has managed to persist. It reveals both the risks that these ecologies face and the resilience of some of these species.”

Its biodiversity aside, there is another aspect to Nabih Saleh that is unique. Named after a 14th-century religious figure, whose burial site on the island is considered a shrine, Nabih Saleh is also shrouded in myths and urban legends.

“One of the stories we kept hearing is how, back in the day when travellers went to the island by boat, if anybody were to take its resources and leave, they would meet misfortune. The boat would capsize, so on and so forth,” Aljomari says.

Between its history, its biodiversity, its fragile present and the myths that surround the island and its resources, Alkhayat and Aljomairi reflected on how best to encapsulate the many aspects of Nabih Saleh within a single installation. They decided to utilise a traditional embroidery technique, one that draws inspiration from thobe al nashal, the sheer ornate women’s overgarment that is found across the region.

In Stories of the Isle and the Inlet, the layered mesh textiles are draped over a steel structure, creating a prismatic volume that is open at both ends. While one side depicts the mangroves, the flora and fauna of the island, the other shows its industrial sites.

The mesh embroidery is being developed and produced in collaboration with textile workers and shops in Nabih Saleh, incorporating another element of local knowledge within the installation.

“For us, our interest with ornamentation is not necessarily as a decorative element, but to use it as a medium for storytelling,” Aljomairi says. “For storytelling and for arching these histories, especially oral histories that are passed down from one person to another, one generation to another.”

As visitors walk from one end of the installation to another, they’ll see unique ways in which the natural elements of the island have been affected by commercialisation. In a way, the mesh fabric that serves as a tunnel is a map, with colour-coded elements that reflect upon the different changes.

“Colour will be key in understanding the installation,” Alkhayat says. “For example, you might see the seasonal migration of birds represented in one colour and the tidal shift represented in another colour. The idea is that each time you focus on one colour, you’ll start to see different layers.”

The embroidery also reflects upon the myths that surround the island, with birds and animals with exaggerated features, such as flamingoes with “really, really long legs”, Alkhayat says. “We’re tagging on this idea of the mythical stories around the site to make it compelling as a space. Even for children to just lie down and observe above them this constellation of ecosystems.”

Ultimately, Stories of the Isle and the Inlet aims to spotlight the richness of an island that has long been overlooked, and to do so in an engaging and informative way.

“We’re not trying to provide any solutions,” Aljomari says. “I don’t think us, as designers or architects, can provide a solution for this ecosystem. It’s more so about starting these conversations.

“It was important for us to highlight this site,” she adds. “And to imagine what can become possible when the right care is given to it.”