Watering the distant, deserting the near (2016—ongoing). Installation; cast sand, collected recordings, works on paper. Dimensions variable.
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Watering the distant, deserting the near memorializes the life and demise of the natural spring of Adhari, one of the largest of Bahrain’s once plentiful freshwater springs. What began as a quest to verify a childhood memory involving a visit to the spring, the project soon took on a role of documenting and retelling a story of a landscape that was rapidly fading, both in its physical remains as well as in memory.
While the work has taken on many forms across its various iterations, the role of the installation explores the vestiges of memories unearthed through research and reconstruction of the narratives surrounding the spring. Consisting of a collection of sand fragments of varying sizes, the artifacts recite sections of a song by Mohamed Yousef Al Jumairi titled “Adhari, Where is the Water?” (عذاري وين الماي؟) which can be heard in the accompanying audio piece amidst the voices of various individuals with relationships to the spring. The title of the work comes from the poem Adhari published in 1970 by the famous Bahraini poet Ali Abdulla Khalifa, which addresses the spring directly, lamenting how it has dried up and commenting on social imbalances. The fragile nature of the sand on display evokes both the dryness of the current landscape as well as the slow fading of its memory in the hearts of Bahrainis. The fragmentation of the lyrics exhibit the gaps found within our memories, gradually growing larger as the objects disintegrate.
The natural springs of Bahrain form one half of its identity, Bahrain in Arabic meaning ‘two seas’, the first sea being the waters of the Gulf surrounding the island, the second formed from the abundant freshwater springs on the land and seabed. When one of these two seas has dried up, what are we left with? By revealing the mistakes of the past, Watering the distant, deserting the near poses questions relevant to our present climate crisis, a prescient message that warns of future catastrophe.
As installed in And All That Is In Between, Islamic Arts Biennale, Jeddah, KSA (2025); Art Here 2021 Richard Mille Art Prize, Louvre Abu Dhabi (2021); The Memory In Our Bones, Green Art Gallery, Dubai (2022); and Kissing through a Curtain, MASS MoCA (2020). Image credits: Seeing Things/Augustine Paredes, Green Art Gallery/Anna Shtraus, MASS MoCA/Kaelan Burkett