Syrian artist Sara Naim partners with Clinique La Prairie for Art Dubai

Swiss wellness centre Clinique La Prairie has once again returned to host the Longevity Lounge at Art Dubai.

Conceived as space to rest, restore and recharge, the lounge offers healthy snacks at the Detox Bar and nutritional advice at the Holistic Health bar. It also offers massages in the Luxury Experience Room, given by therapists from the newly launched Dubai Longevity Hub, inside the recently opened One&Only One Za’abeel hotel in Dubai.

In keeping with the ethos of creativity at Art Dubai, however, Clinique La Prairie has commissioned an artwork around the theme of longevity by the Syrian multidisciplinary artist Sara Naim.

Living between Dubai and London, Naim's work deals with the concept of boundaries as points of connection.

Art Dubai 2024 guide: Everything you need to know

"My practice is really interested in perception and its ability to shift through polarity. Within that, I've explored sea to landscape, ideal and real, and now birth and death through the materialisation of sunrise and sunset itself," she tells The National.

The site specific work Naim created is – as with many of her pieces – deceptively simple. A free-standing sculpture, it comprises a tall board held upright by sacks on the floor. A closer look reveals a multitude of materials and techniques including aluminium, epoxy resin, digital print and digital photography.

The board has an amorphous, rounded outline and is painted sea green. On it are five horizontal lines with semi-circles that seem to denote different phases of a setting or rising sun. Surrounding these are suggestions of images, that could be bubbles on the surface of the sea, light reflected in water, or even, perhaps, the sun itself. “You're not really sure if you're looking at the water, or the landscape, inside or outside,” Naim explains.

Artwork created by Sara Naim for Clinique La Prairie. Photo: Clinique La Prairie

Naim's latest piece uses abstract imagery and deliberately oblique references to force the viewer into a new way of looking. “I have used minimalism as a way to simplify representation because I believe that that's a default setting in which we see. I would define [this work] as sculptural photography," she says.

The space around the free-standing artwork encourages the viewer to move around it, and observe it from multiple angles. “It's very four-dimensional because you have to operate around it. It was really important for me to have a front and back, although the image at the front and the back are mirroring one another. They are completely identical," she says.

The bags on the floor, she explains, are also printed with elements of the imagery, now heavily pixelated, thanks to magnification.

“I often use microscopy as a way to play with the dialectic of scale, as when you zoom in you expect that you understand something more clearly, but actually you sometimes get pushed into abstraction.”

The use of digital prints only emphasises this. “You get furthered by this kind of digitisation or glitch or pixelation. You kind of have a moving in and moving out."

The Clinique La Prairie Longevity Lounge at Art Dubai. Photo: Clinique La Prairie

While this is Naim's first time collaborating with Clinique La Prairie, it is not her first time at Art Dubai – she has exhibited her work across several seasons with the gallery The Third Line. On how this particular commission came about, she explains it was a simple process. "Clinique La Prairie approached Art Dubai, and Art Dubai then contacted me, I didn't apply for it."

Creating the work was equally straightforward, she says, with Clinique La Prairie careful to respect her integrity as an artist, never dictating what the final result should be. “They were very open and accommodating, and not limiting with what I was interested in or trying to say or trying to do, which was great.”

Sara Naim shared this image of her making the artwork on social media. Sara Naim / Instagram

"Clinique La Prairie was so open, only telling me to play with wellness and longevity. I work with aspects of time, and deconstructing the notion of time, which for me is connected with longevity because I don't believe that there's a beginning, middle or end.”

Art Dubai 2024 takes place at Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai, from Friday to Sunday. More information is available at www.artdubai.ae

RESULTS

5pm Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m

Winner Thabet Al Reef, Bernardo Pinheiro (jockey), Abdallah Al Hammadi (trainer)

5.30pm Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m

Winner Blue Diamond, Pat Cosgrave, Abdallah Al Hammadi

6pm Arabian Triple Crown Round-1 Listed (PA) Dh230,000 (T) 1,600m

Winner Hameem, Adrie de Vries, Abdallah Al Hammadi

6.30pm Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,400m

Winner Shoja’A Muscat, Szczepan Mazur, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami

7pm Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m

Winner Heros De Lagarde, Szczepan Mazur, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami

7.30pm Handicap (TB) Dh100,000 (T) 2,400m

Winner Good Tidings, Antonio Fresu, Musabah Al Muhairi

Panipat

Director Ashutosh Gowariker

Produced Ashutosh Gowariker, Rohit Shelatkar, Reliance Entertainment

Cast Arjun Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Kriti Sanon, Mohnish Behl, Padmini Kolhapure, Zeenat Aman

Rating 3 /5 stars

While you're here

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The specs: Lamborghini Aventador SVJ

Price, base: Dh1,731,672

Engine: 6.5-litre V12

Gearbox: Seven-speed automatic

Power: 770hp @ 8,500rpm

Torque: 720Nm @ 6,750rpm

Fuel economy: 19.6L / 100km

Essentials

The flights
Etihad and Emirates fly direct from the UAE to Delhi from about Dh950 return including taxes.
The hotels
Double rooms at Tijara Fort-Palace cost from 6,670 rupees (Dh377), including breakfast.
Doubles at Fort Bishangarh cost from 29,030 rupees (Dh1,641), including breakfast. Doubles at Narendra Bhawan cost from 15,360 rupees (Dh869). Doubles at Chanoud Garh cost from 19,840 rupees (Dh1,122), full board. Doubles at Fort Begu cost from 10,000 rupees (Dh565), including breakfast.
The tours
Amar Grover travelled with Wild Frontiers. A tailor-made, nine-day itinerary via New Delhi, with one night in Tijara and two nights in each of the remaining properties, including car/driver, costs from £1,445 (Dh6,968) per person.

BLACKBERRY

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The biog

Name: Capt Shadia Khasif

Position: Head of the Criminal Registration Department at Hatta police

Family: Five sons and three daughters

The first female investigator in Hatta.

Role Model: Father

She believes that there is a solution to every problem

COMPANY%20PROFILE

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The Perfect Couple

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor

Creator: Jenna Lamia

Rating: 3/5

A State of Passion

Directors: Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi

Stars: Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah

Rating: 4/5

The specs

Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo

Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm

Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm

Transmission: 9-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km

On sale: Now

Price: From Dh117,059

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COMPANY PROFILE

Name: Kumulus Water

Started: 2021

Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid

Based: Tunisia

Sector: Water technology

Number of staff: 22

Investment raised: $4 million

Results

2.30pm Maiden (PA) Dh40,000 1,200m

Winner Lamia, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel.

3pm Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 1,000m

Winner Jap Al Afreet, Elione Chaves, Irfan Ellahi.

3.30pm Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 1,700m

Winner MH Tawag, Bernardo Pinheiro, Elise Jeanne.

4pm Handicap (TB) Dh40,000 2,000m

Winner Skygazer, Sandro Paiva, Ali Rashid Al Raihe.

4.30pm The Ruler of Sharjah Cup Prestige (PA) Dh250,000 1,700m

Winner AF Kal Noor, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel.

5pm Sharjah Marathon (PA) Dh70,000 2,700m

Winner RB Grynade, Bernardo Pinheiro, Eric Lemartinel.

Real estate tokenisation project

Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.

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Some of Darwish's last words

"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008

His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.