SHADIA ALEM WITHIN THE OTHERWORLDLY 110 PROFILE S audi. Female. Artist. Shadia Alem collects these loaded 21st century identities like pearls strung on a necklace. But she is much more than the sum of these parts. Once just a girl clutching drawing pencils in her hand, even then, she was able to recognise the jinn (hidden, spiritual creatures in Islamic and Arab folklore) dancing through her native city of Mecca. Alem is an artist with a gift for sensitivity, one who believes in light and energy and struggles to render the invisible visible. She gladly owns the identities that society has given her. “I love all that defines me – Saudi, female and a seeker of beauty. I don’t mind being part of the related social political connotations,” she says. “Saudi translates in my history, the life I have lived, the set of struggles and privileges that formed my unique character.”Yet Alem is uneasy referring to herself as an artist because of the commercial connotations that the title carries in today’s market. “The title of artist means commitment and exposure and allowing others to be an active part in what you are. That makes me uncomfortable,” she explains. Destiny, however, is another story entirely: “I am destined to be a person who is continually seeking to capture and simply express beauty.” WITH THE OTHERS Armed with a Bachelor’s degree in Art and English Literature from King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, it was in 1999 that Alem staged her first exhibitions in the Red Sea port city: The In Between at Ridha Art Gallery, Signs at Roshan Gallery and Panorama at The American Geographical Society. Before these shows however, she received her first paid commission, a cheque for $8000 from the General Presidency of Youth Welfare as first prize for three tableaux. Perhaps in some circles, a commission may have outlined her career in art, but she has felt like an artist all her life, beginning as a five-year-old, mischievously scribbling figures on walls, At the centre of Shadia Alem’s practice is an inquisition into the black unknown, beyond what the eye can see. Danna Lorch and Myrna Ayad speak about contrasts in light, identity and time with the Mecca-born mixed media artist. 111 Opening spread: The Supreme Ka’aba Of God 02 . 2011. Photographic collage. 133 x 200 cm. This page: The Supreme Ka’aba Of God 06 . 2011. C-print diasec mounted on dibond. 120 x 200 cm. Facing page: The Supreme Ka’aba of God 04 . 2012. Lambda print alucobond mounted on aluminium faced with Perspex. 120 x 200 cm. Image courtesy Athr Gallery, Jeddah. doors and textbooks, impervious to the scolding of her parents and teachers. The stories that Alem selects to tell through her art are, without exception, deeply grounded in Saudi legend, custom and myth. A cloud of magic surrounds her creative process, softening the lines between fantasy and fact. It has been this way since Alem was a girl, when the jinnyat (Arabian folklore’s term for unseen creatures from the desert with supernatural powers who are able to shift forms) first became real to her. “The jin- nyat were a tangible aspect of my childhood,” she recalls. “In my eyes, they insisted on taking forms around me, climbing my grandmother’s white braid, while telling their stories or hiding under my pillow.” Perhaps one of Alem’s first experiences with the jin- nyat came in the form of dolls, on which she would drape fabric bought from the markets in Mecca. The dolls resurfaced in 2000 with Jinniyat Lar , which saw Alem take inspiration from the Arabian mythology of the Wadi Aqbar and River Lar regions as a plat- form to bring the unseen jinnyat to paper. She cre- ated a series of 21 paintings that are accompanied by text written by her sister Raja. In doing so, she created a tale surrounding the resurrection of the River Lar by these supernatural creatures, which was then compiled into a book commissioned by the Al-Mansouria Foundation. In 2000, Jinniyat Lar was To truly understand their [Shadia and Raja] respective practices, it is important to appreciate each as an individual force and talent. PROFILE PROFILE 112 exhibited at Euro Art Genève in Switzerland and at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and a year later at Galerie Janine Rubeiz in Beirut, the Saudi National Museum in Riyadh and the Brunei Gallery at the School of Oriental and African Sciences in London. Raja, a prominent novelist, is often mistakenly positioned as Shadia’s artistic half, as though without one, the other could not create. No doubt, the two are spiritually connected, so much so, that they can sometimes read one another’s minds. They have often collaborated: Shadia with art for Raja’s literary works and Raja with The Black Mirror (2004), a multimedia installation showcased at the first-ever National Pavil- ion of Saudi Arabia at the 2011 Venice Biennale. The sisters are effortlessly fashionable and were photo- graphed clad in Cerruti for Vogue Italia in 2011. They share secrets, homes, a public website and even a bank account. However, Shadia is the visual artist and Raja the writer, and to truly understand their respec- tive practices, it is important to appreciate each as an individual force and talent without viewing them as perpetually orbiting the other. DIFFERING SPECTRUMS In her early years, Alem worked in a Jeddah stu- dio with views of the desert. “It was all windows and uniformly coloured sand and there were no walls to display paintings, leaving only a small space where I framed one of my mother’s embroi- dered pillowcases, which was a great source of early inspiration,” she recalls. It was here that she produced Negative No More (2004), a project which explores the way in which Saudi women are pub- licly depicted in the shadows of society, similar to the way that figures take unidentifiable shape on “I wake up every morning without a destination in mind and just drift into cities, into faces, sometimes onto the same roads, but discovering new revelations.” 113 PROFILE PROFILE an undeveloped negative. Perched cosily on a cushion, she stitched together two dec- ades’ worth of sepia-stained family photo negatives that make up this large-scale installa- tion. In total, 132 rolls (of 4752 pictures) comprise Negative No More , which was exhibited in Languages Of The Desert (2005) at the Kunstmuseum in Bonn in 2005, at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris a year later, and at Edge of Arabia’s shows in Venice and Istanbul in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Alem is sensitive to the notion of women being portrayed on the margins of Saudi society and in re- sponse to this, produced The Black Mirror in 2004 – a 37.5-metre-long roll made up of images of wedding announcements and other social gatherings published in Saudi newspapers. As per Saudi media practice, only men’s faces and names are published, and in the event of a wedding, the bride is not referred to by her name, but as the daughter of ‘Mr so and so’. For part one of The Black Mirror , Alem gathered two years’ worth of wedding clippings from a Riyadh newspaper and set up a workshop where five women were tasked with censoring the groom’s faces and names with black marker. The second part of the installation saw her create an invitation card, which featured a bride, superimposed with Alem’s face, while the faces and names of the men are censored with black marker. In her attempt to enlighten across a body of work that addresses social, economic and spiritual themes, Alem’s oeuvre deals with an ongoing conversation with “the black” or the space beyond where the eye is able to travel. She defines black as “a complete absorption of light, mystery, richness and power” and is noticeably drawn to the qualities of the colour, so much so, that her family’s nickname for her is ‘The Black One’. She grew up at the feet of the Al-Masjid Al-Haram (The Sacred Mosque), home to the Holy Ka’aba, the cuboid structure made of granite covered in the kiswah , a black ornate velvet curtain. Just as women are draped in black abayas in Saudi and just as the Ka’aba is enveloped by the kiswah , Alem continually ponders what lies beneath. “I feel like I am destined to tackle the colour black, to challenge it and explore its depths,” she says. This page: Installation view of The Black Arch at the National Pavilion of Saudi Arabia at the 54th Venice Biennale. Facing page: Negative No More . 2004. Strips of photo negatives, 132 film rolls containing 4752 pictures, hand-sewn together. 300 x 200 cm. Image courtesy Athr Gallery, Jeddah. 114 PROFILE PROFILE NARRATIVES OF THE DIVINE Mecca often makes an appearance in Alem’s body of work. Rather than portray it distinctly, Alem fo- cuses on aspects related to the holy city. For exam- ple, The Black Arch seeks to illuminate the parallels between Venice and Mecca, two small cities that are cultural centres, drawing traders, scholars, pilgrims and enthusiasts alike from around the world. The arch stands at 350 x 700 cm and is surrounded by 3457 stainless steel balls. Through immersion in sound, light and photography – gathered from both cities – the dramatic installation transforms passive view- ers into unwitting participants as it imparts a sense of stepping into a sacred space and melding with the unknown. “It is a field of energy produced by the cultural and spiritual exchange which we grew up in as children that is enriched by the energy of an audi- ence from around the world,” explains Alem. “The au- dio-visual aspect of The Black Arch captures the joyful spirit of my Mecca – its ancient markets, wedding cel- ebrations mingled with melodic prayers, the streets crowded with worshippers – it’s a living mosaic that reveals what lies behind the black.” In recent years, she has dabbled with photogra- phy, a medium that fascinates her for the voyages that the camera takes her on. “I wake up every morn- ing without a destination in mind and just drift into cities, into faces, sometimes onto the same roads, but discovering new revelations,” she says. It is through this trance-like experimentation that Alem has lately sensed “a strong bond developing” between her and the world, one which, she says makes her feel more like “a traveller”. In the past decade, controversial develop- ment has been undertaken in Mecca’s ancient neighbourhoods surrounding the Masjid Al- Haram. Skyscrapers branded with international logos tower over the mosque alongside a fren- zied herd of construction cranes. A series of photographic collages, The Supreme Ka’aba Of God (2012) represents Alem’s attempt to recon- cile whether transaction-focused development This page and facing page: The Black Mirror Part 3 ; The Black Mirror Part 1 2007. Collage. 17 x 10 cm each. All images courtesy the artist, unless otherwise specified. 115 PROFILE PROFILE “I am all for change, but not when it doesn’t leave a space for the soul and the original identity [of a place] to prosper.” is in conflict or harmony with sacred ground. “I have nothing against modernisation but against distortion and destruction,” she explains. “I am all for change, but not when it doesn’t leave a space for the soul and the original iden- tity [of a place] to prosper. It is a question of keeping the balance.” The project represents Mecca using real images of the site that have been distorted and overlapped so tightly that the effect is claustrophobic, arguably referenc- ing both the sensation of being packed into a tight crowd of pilgrims and the intrusion of the commercial into the holy. Alem’s work on Mec- ca, she says, “is not solely concerned with the changing face of the holy city, but the changing face of our world in general and our way of life.” Now based in Paris, Alem has come to be- lieve that all studios are temporary protective shells, but what remains essential is the quality and vibrancy of natural light. Here, she deliberately challenges herself to defy instinct and be crea- tive in a cramped space containing only a modest table and a computer that increasingly functions as a virtual canvas for ongoing digital and photo- graphic projects. Exactly what those projects are, Alem insists on keeping a mystery. “Like conception, creation needs privacy,” she says. “It needs to be pro- tected behind the dark layers of the body until the moment of revelation.” For more information visit www.shadiaalem- rajaalem.com and www.athrart.com