In geology, the term “unconformity” refers to an interruption in the Earth’s geological record. It is a time-based gap between two strata, a break in the record of rocks that can be caused by various factors, including erosion, natural disasters and sea-level changes.
This means that two layers of sediment ages apart — 200 million years, for example — can come into contact with each other, leaving a hiatus in between.
Poetically, artist duo and filmmakers Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige think of these intervals as “temporal ruptures”, pockets of missing or unaccounted time and history.
They have borrowed the term “unconformities” as the title of their ongoing project, which uses core samples extracted from the Earth as a way to think about urban memory and alternative historical narratives within manmade environments.
The works from the project — video, photography and installation — have been brought together by The Third Line for the exhibition Messages with(out) a code, on view at the Dubai gallery’s newly renovated space until April 26.
Unconformities began after Hadjithomas and Joreige were invited by a friend, engineer Philippe Fayad, who analyses soil for real estate developments, to join him on one of the drilling excursions at a construction site.
The process involves the insertion of hollow steel cubes into the ground to draw out a cylindrical section of the Earth’s substance. The materials are then laid out according to their layers and can be studied for various purposes.
“The moment we arrived, we saw those core samples in those boxes. We felt that this was a connection with everything that’s underneath our feet. It makes visible all that is invisible,” Hadjithomas says.
She and Joreige followed Fayad to various sites, eventually expanding the project to retrieve and photograph core samples in Beirut, Paris and Athens, cities that have particular significance for the artists’ practices.
Hadjithomas and Joreige were born in Beirut and split their time living between the Lebanese capital and Paris. They have been frequenting Athens after producing a film there in 2013.
The exhibition includes the short film Palimpsests, which was shot in several sites across Beirut and documents the process of core drilling and sorting.
Interspersing drone shots of the site and views of the city’s built landscape with close-ups of the core samples, the film contemplates Beirut’s visible and underground textures.
The magnified fragments of soil and shell hint at several unknown stories as workers present chips of baked clay, food seeds, and even human bones and teeth.
“There are no roots, thus it could be suggested that these are the teeth of a teenager or child, not [an] adult,” says one of the men in the video.
Dangling from the gallery’s ceiling is one of the artists’ Time Capsules works, made of suspended core samples in resin. These cylinders are another way of shedding light on the otherwise invisible or hidden.
Working with geologists and archaeologists, the duo have also resculpted the stones and sediments to excavate the histories embedded within them.
In Trilogies, they have asked experts to select samples and identify clues as to what they might have been. These framed studies feature three parts: a photograph of the sample followed by an archaeological illustration and written details on location, date, drilling depth and the artist’s own interpretation of the material.
“We create possible narratives based on what the archaeologists and prehistorians see, but it’s linked to something more poetic, not scientific,” Hadjithomas explains.
Here, the imaginary takes over as the artists question linear approaches to history, as well as the rewriting of the past. Answers to these mysteries don’t come easy, and it has been part of the duo’s practice, including in their films, to explore the truth beyond official histories, facts and materials.
After five or six metres, human presence disappears. We arrive at geology
Joana Hadjithomas,
artist
In their 2000 documentary Khiam, for example, they interview former prisoners of the Khiam prison camp established by Israel during its occupation of Southern Lebanon.
The subjects seem to recall every detail of their jail cells, torture and daily lives, but it is clear that when factual elements do fail, personal testimony clarifies and sharpens.
Similarly, the artists’ documentary Ismyrne / Ismyrna (2016) on the late Etel Adnan investigates the transmission of memory through family history. Both Hadjithomas and Adnan attempt to reconstruct the city of Izmir, formerly Smyrna, a place they had never been, but had held such significance to their families.
When it comes to soil and sediment, what histories can be revealed and translated to us? And what happens when, such as in Unconformities , these stories are dissolved between spaces?
Their textile work Message with(out) a code attempts to address such concerns. Working with weavers, the artists have produced tapestries based on aerial photographs of soil and stone, laid out on the drilling sites.
The original photographs were damaged during the Beirut port blast in August 2020, making the woven versions a form of restoration and recovery.
Contrasting the softness of the textile with the hard stone that the tapestries depict, the artists are also working towards a reinterpretation of what once was.
Meanwhile, the photographic series A State, from 2019, shows three images of core samples drilled from a landfill site in Tripoli, where mounds of rubbish — now rising at 45 metres above sea level — have been around for more than 25 years.
We don’t see the landscape or the piles of trash, but we can imagine them from the abstracted parts within these images: bits of coloured plastic entangled with rocks.
“For 25 years, this garbage has accumulated without being recycled. The garbage has become like ‘technofossils’, they show what we as humans are leaving behind,” Hadjithomas explains.
In this work, the artists not only present ecological concerns, but also ideas of temporality. “After five or six metres, human presence disappears [in the samples]. We arrive at geology,” she says.
For the artists, there is more than one way to tell time. And more than one way to read history. In the grander scheme of space and existence, human presence is minimal. Cycles of life have come before us and will come after us, a sliver of comfort in seemingly apocalyptic times.
“It’s always about balance, destruction... It gives you this idea that it’s a continuous cycle, we are part of it,” Hadjithomas says.
Messages with(out) a code is on view at The Third Line, Dubai until April 26. More information is on thethirdline.com
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Race card:
6.30pm: Maiden; Dh165,000; 2,000m
7.05pm: Handicap; Dh165,000; 2,200m
7.40pm: Conditions; Dh240,000; 1,600m
8.15pm: Handicap; Dh190,000; 2,000m
8.50pm: The Garhoud Sprint Listed; Dh265,000; 1,200m
9.25pm: Handicap; Dh170,000; 1,600m
10pm: Handicap; Dh190,000; 1,400m
The five pillars of Islam
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The biog
Siblings: five brothers and one sister
Education: Bachelors in Political Science at the University of Minnesota
Interests: Swimming, tennis and the gym
Favourite place: UAE
Favourite packet food on the trip: pasta primavera
What he did to pass the time during the trip: listen to audio books
Results
Ashraf Ghani 50.64 per cent
Abdullah Abdullah 39.52 per cent
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar 3.85 per cent
Rahmatullah Nabil 1.8 per cent
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
THE BIO: Martin Van Almsick
Hometown: Cologne, Germany
Family: Wife Hanan Ahmed and their three children, Marrah (23), Tibijan (19), Amon (13)
Favourite dessert: Umm Ali with dark camel milk chocolate flakes
Favourite hobby: Football
Breakfast routine: a tall glass of camel milk
Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The biog
Favourite films: Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia
Favourite books: Start with Why by Simon Sinek and Good to be Great by Jim Collins
Favourite dish: Grilled fish
Inspiration: Sheikh Zayed's visionary leadership taught me to embrace new challenges.
Nancy 9 (Hassa Beek)
Nancy Ajram
(In2Musica)
COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Carzaty%2C%20now%20Kavak%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ELaunch%20year%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ECarzaty%20launched%20in%202018%2C%20Kavak%20in%20the%20GCC%20launched%20in%202022%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20140%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Automotive%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ECarzaty%20raised%20%246m%20in%20equity%20and%20%244m%20in%20debt%3B%20Kavak%20plans%20%24130m%20investment%20in%20the%20GCC%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
US PGA Championship in numbers
1 Joost Luiten produced a memorable hole in one at the par-three fourth in the first round.
2 To date, the only two players to win the PGA Championship after winning the week before are Rory McIlroy (2014 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational) and Tiger Woods (2007, WGC-Bridgestone Invitational). Hideki Matsuyama or Chris Stroud could have made it three.
3 Number of seasons without a major for McIlroy, who finished in a tie for 22nd.
4 Louis Oosthuizen has now finished second in all four of the game's major championships.
5 In the fifth hole of the final round, McIlroy holed his longest putt of the week - from 16ft 8in - for birdie.
6 For the sixth successive year, play was disrupted by bad weather with a delay of one hour and 43 minutes on Friday.
7 Seven under par (64) was the best round of the week, shot by Matsuyama and Francesco Molinari on Day 2.
8 Number of shots taken by Jason Day on the 18th hole in round three after a risky recovery shot backfired.
9 Jon Rahm's age in months the last time Phil Mickelson missed the cut in the US PGA, in 1995.
10 Jimmy Walker's opening round as defending champion was a 10-over-par 81.
11 The par-four 11th coincidentally ranked as the 11th hardest hole overall with a scoring average of 4.192.
12 Paul Casey was a combined 12 under par for his first round in this year's majors.
13 The average world ranking of the last 13 PGA winners before this week was 25. Kevin Kisner began the week ranked 25th.
14 The world ranking of Justin Thomas before his victory.
15 Of the top 15 players after 54 holes, only Oosthuizen had previously won a major.
16 The par-four 16th marks the start of Quail Hollow's so-called "Green Mile" of finishing holes, some of the toughest in golf.
17 The first round scoring average of the last 17 major champions was 67.2. Kisner and Thorbjorn Olesen shot 67 on day one at Quail Hollow.
18 For the first time in 18 majors, the eventual winner was over par after round one (Thomas shot 73).
THE BIO
Favourite book: ‘Purpose Driven Life’ by Rick Warren
Favourite travel destination: Switzerland
Hobbies: Travelling and following motivational speeches and speakers
Favourite place in UAE: Dubai Museum
The years Ramadan fell in May
The years Ramadan fell in May
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
ALL THE RESULTS
Bantamweight
Siyovush Gulmomdov (TJK) bt Rey Nacionales (PHI) by decision.
Lightweight
Alexandru Chitoran (ROU) bt Hussein Fakhir Abed (SYR) by submission.
Catch 74kg
Omar Hussein (JOR) bt Tohir Zhuraev (TJK) by decision.
Strawweight (Female)
Seo Ye-dam (KOR) bt Weronika Zygmunt (POL) by decision.
Featherweight
Kaan Ofli (TUR) bt Walid Laidi (ALG) by TKO.
Lightweight
Abdulla Al Bousheiri (KUW) bt Leandro Martins (BRA) by TKO.
Welterweight
Ahmad Labban (LEB) bt Sofiane Benchohra (ALG) by TKO.
Bantamweight
Jaures Dea (CAM) v Nawras Abzakh (JOR) no contest.
Lightweight
Mohammed Yahya (UAE) bt Glen Ranillo (PHI) by TKO round 1.
Lightweight
Alan Omer (GER) bt Aidan Aguilera (AUS) by TKO round 1.
Welterweight
Mounir Lazzez (TUN) bt Sasha Palatkinov (HKG) by TKO round 1.
Featherweight title bout
Romando Dy (PHI) v Lee Do-gyeom (KOR) by KO round 1.
PROFILE OF STARZPLAY
Date started: 2014
Founders: Maaz Sheikh, Danny Bates
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment/Streaming Video On Demand
Number of employees: 125
Investors/Investment amount: $125 million. Major investors include Starz/Lionsgate, State Street, SEQ and Delta Partners
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl turbo
Power: 201hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 320Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 6-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 8.7L/100km
Price: Dh133,900
On sale: now
The essentials
What: Emirates Airline Festival of Literature
When: Friday until March 9
Where: All main sessions are held in the InterContinental Dubai Festival City
Price: Sessions range from free entry to Dh125 tickets, with the exception of special events.
Hot Tip: If waiting for your book to be signed looks like it will be timeconsuming, ask the festival’s bookstore if they have pre-signed copies of the book you’re looking for. They should have a bunch from some of the festival’s biggest guest authors.
Information: www.emirateslitfest.com
