BEYOND EMERGING ARTISTS 2024

Curator: Lorenzo Fiaschi

Artists: Dina Nazmi Khorchid | Simrin Mehra Agarwal | Fatma Al Ali

20 – 24 | 11 | 2024
2 – 9 PM 
Hall S, Manarat Al Saadiyat

An annual initiative that provides three emerging artists in the UAE with a platform from which to develop their practice and realise ambitious art projects. The selected artists undertake a year-long programme created by a guest curator each year with critical feedback and support from the curator. The programmme leads toward the realisation of a group exhibition for the Abu Dhabi Art Fair in November. The works remain on exhibition to the public for several months in Abu Dhabi beyond the fair dates and are then exhibited internationally.

Supported by Friends of Abu Dhabi Art since 2021.

The three selected artists were chosen following an open call announced at the start of the year. The shortlisted proposals were reviewed by Abu Dhabi Art, by GALLERIA CONTINUA and in consultation with Friends of Abu Dhabi Art, a group of individuals who are actively committed to supporting art and culture in the emirate and who support the Beyond Emerging Artists programme each year.
Through the Beyond Emerging Artists programme, Abu Dhabi Art is committed to supporting emerging local artists in the development of their work. The support offered by Abu Dhabi Art for selected artists includes critical feedback and dialogue with the appointed guest curator each year alongside financial support in covering the costs of artwork production fees, materials, time, travel and research, to enable the artists to create new works. Abu Dhabi Art brings recognition to their ambitious art projects through exhibiting the works to the Abu Dhabi Art fair visitors and abroad afterwards each year.

This programme is sponsored by Abu Dhabi Art’s Global Partner HSBC. 

“As we embark on this new journey with Art Abu Dhabi's 'Beyond Emerging Artists' programme, we are grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the vibrant contemporary art scene of the region. Having been part of Abu Dhabi Art's history since its inception, Galleria Continua celebrates 18 years of artistic dialogue and collaboration in the UAE. This programme not only affords us the privilege to witness the dynamic evolution of the art world but also allows us to nurture emerging talents. *At the core of our commitment lies the importance of embracing differences, for it is through diversity that we elevate the cultural consciousness of humanity, enriching our collective experience of artistic expression. We are thrilled to extend our expertise and passion to the three artists selected for this venture, Dina Nazmi Khorchid, Simrin Mehra Agarwal and Fatma Al Ali, guiding them from conception to exhibition. Together, we aspire to cultivate exceptional projects of international caliber, showcasing the creativity and potential of today's artistic landscape.”

- Lorenzo Fiaschi, GALLERIA CONTINUA Co-Founder and Director; and Curator of Abu Dhabi Art 2024 Beyond Emerging Artists Programme

Dina Nazmi Khorchid

Land, Untitled, 2024

In this exhibition, Dina Nazmi Khorchid presents a series of works encompassing the psychological connections humans share with nature. Each piece serves as a record of a fleeting moment, preserving a stillness infused with movement that mimics the intertwinement between presence and absence, amid destruction and forced displacement. Through material and repetition, the senses are engaged and touch the inner depths of being; protecting, sheltering and connecting as textiles drape, cascade, immerse and objects float in space, mirroring the emotional terrain of grappling a legacy of loss, generational trauma and the ongoing search for a sense of home.

"Corporeal Echoes, Ethereal Remains" captures the presence and lingering memories of profound loss. In this haunting landscape, the absence of trees suggests an uprooted erasure, yet their submerged silhouettes stand as monuments of belonging, silently witnessing the passage of time. They evoke a poignant relationship with the land, embodying a fragile existence that adapts to transient notions and navigates a world fraught with change.
 
“A Flower for a Martyr and a Scroll” honors the Palestinian wilderness while referencing life and death, homeland, song and procession rituals. Depicting 48 delicate and vibrant poppy anemones –or blood flowers– a national symbol of resilience and a collective reclamation of identity. 

"Estuary" imagines a common place where fresh and saltwater converge and converse, in a fleeting moment of abstract rippling of vivid color imbued in darkness. The water’s movement embodies a delicate balance, a momentary harmony. This meeting point, a barzakh–an in-between space–holds a passing, ephemeral quality, yet it is grounding and anchoring beyond its flow.

Together, the pieces evoke a sense of ecological grief, a mourning not only for individual loss but for the erosion of natural and cultural identities. Viewers are invited to pause and navigate their own inner landscapes while contemplating their connection to our shared narratives and how memory and identity withstand displacement. Each form bearing witness to histories and the threads that connect us to a place, even as they transcend its physical bounds.

“Working with GALLERIA CONTINUA is a tremendous honour. Having conversations with the curators, their expertise and support, along with a platform to bring my work home and exhibit at Abu Dhabi Art, will do wonders for my artistic development.”

- Dina Nazmi Khorchid, Artist of Abu Dhabi Art 2024 Beyond Emerging Artists Programme

Simrin Mehra Agarwal

Precarious Place 
 
The installation titled Precarious Place opens new perspectives and critically urgent dialogues, questioning our understanding of nature, its various stages of bloom and decay within the context of histories of war, neglect, and contemporary issues of climate change.  In the light of anthropogenic global warming and the accelerated extinction of species, the work aims to inspire new possibilities for building worlds with the other-than-human in mind. It seeks to create awareness and provoke thoughts about the destruction of natural resources and cultural heritage. 
 
The work reflects the perpetual process of evolution, by exploring vegetal composition and engines of war. Botanical forms take over man-made structures, ruins and machines of war through mysterious processes, transforming inanimate objects into living organic forms pulsating with life and forming interesting hybrids. The installation chronicles the progression of time and evolution characterized by growth, maturity, decomposition, and dissipation within which occur complex structures, patterns, and fractals. 
 
As a diver and marine researcher, I have been chronicling the aftermath of obliteration and patterns of growth on sunken archaeological war wrecks in the UAE and the Gulf. The installation draws inspiration and takes references from the war machines and artificial reefs of Abu Dhabi. The process of creating this work includes revisiting and examining archaeological sites on land and sea, documenting, journaling and attaching new meaning to objects that teeter on the verge of oblivion. The installation incorporates over 100 detailed drawings made over a period of three years from video footage and photographs archiving my research conducted several meters underwater.
 
Precarious Place investigates nature’s liminal states, the periods between destruction and rebirth when creation takes place silently in ways that are difficult to observe. With the passage of time, electro-chemical reaction and bacteria break down the atoms and corrode the materials and structures of the wreck, causing distinct assemblages of microbes to flourish, which, in turn, create favourable environments for endangered animals and dense vegetal life to thrive. The vessels of war once symbolic of violence and destruction, in turn, revive the ecosystem, functioning as artificial reefs pulsating with life thus becoming symbols of hope and rebirth.
 
The work deconstructs nature’s micro-architecture in fine detail and co-relates it with man-made construction to understand how sustainable methods in the rebuilding of forests, formation of artificial reefs and rehabilitation of coral and mangrove systems can be deployed to foster fragile ecosystems. 

I am intrigued by the idea of camouflage, survival, and the symbiotic relationship between species where their roles as predator, prey and parasite keep changing. At a time when the planet is undergoing a major existential crisis; environmental, ecological and cultural, that threatens the existence of every species, does one realize the precariousness of our existence and the fragility and inter-connectedness of all life on earth. How humans and non-humans are closely entangled into a systematic ecosystem where every being depends on another for survival. By advocating a silver lining on biodiversity and nature’s regeneration cycles, where the animal, vegetable and mineral coexist, the work leaves the viewer with a promise of a future utopian world of multispecies cohabitation. 
 
Through a poetic yet deconstructive approach towards nature, the work explores its diversity of structure and interpretation offering fresh perspectives and insights into its artistic, cultural, and ecological significance. It aims to shed new light on its intricate beauty and unravels the underlying principles of hybridity, symbiosis and dynamic morphogenesis that govern its creation revealing how forms and structures develop and evolve while exhibiting self-organizing properties that emerge through iterative and recursive processes of growth and transformation. 

Combining drawing, painting, relief, collage, assemblage and sculpture, the monumental installation aspires to create complex and elaborate compositions that meticulously scrutinize and dissect even the finest of details to draw out hidden meanings and connections. Multilayered in form and meaning, the installation covers large wall and floor spaces to create an immersive environment which draws the spectator to become a part of the experience rather than a mere observer.

“I am honoured and thrilled to be selected for Beyond Emerging Artists 2024. This platform will help me realise and showcase ambitious projects regionally and internationally, creating a niche in the global contemporary art world. I look forward to contributing to the UAE and Gulf art scene during this transformative time. With the support and guidance from GALLERIA CONTINUA, I anticipate expanding my practice and elevating my work. I am grateful to Abu Dhabi Art and GALLERIA CONTINUA for this incredible opportunity.”

- Simrin Mehra Agarwal, Artist of Abu Dhabi Art 2024 Beyond Emerging Artists Programme

Fatma Al Ali

Once Upon a Pirate Coast 

A multifaceted body of work that explores the British presence in the UAE prior to its unification, focusing on the shifting power dynamics and the stories of those who lived through these changes. Comprising three distinct but interconnected pieces, the work embodies a dialogue between history, art, and narrative.  
 
Of Ships, Sails, and Misguided Labels critically engages with early 19th-century prints that depict the Arabian Gulf campaign of 1809, notably the attack on the Qawasim fleet in Ras Al Khaimah by the British East India Company and Royal Navy. Three Al Qasimi bases and over 80 vessels were destroyed by the operation. These reappraised visual representations are playfully altered; they are overlaid with text, composed using typewriter, assuming the voice of the land as a witness to the events.   The installation challenges archived colonial narratives about the campaign and reclaims the perspectives of the local population through the voice of the land, formerly lost to history.  

I Read Their Words, but I Heard My Own is a sculptural piece made from a mix of desert and beach sand, fused with salt water from the sea. This raw material becomes a canvas for text transferred from both Arab magazine excerpts and British newspaper articles, presenting two divergent accounts of the same history. Through this contrast, the piece highlights and emphasizes the complexity of truth in the documentation of history.  

I Picked Up a Coin and Heard a Whisper is an audio piece, hidden amidst a pile of replicated coins from the era, critiquing the slow erasure of Al Qawasim-minted currency, which was replaced first by the Indian rupee and later, by a newly created Gulf rupee, under the British protectorate. The audio, again narrated by the voice of the land, speaks of the rise and fall of various powers throughout history, emphasizing the resilience of the land and its people.  Visitors are invited to explore the coins and take one or two as a keepsake. 
Together, these works form a commentary and critique on colonialism, memory, and the resilience of the land and its people, offering a nuanced view of the British presence in the region from 1820 – 1971.

“I am thrilled to be selected for Beyond Emerging Artists and look forward to bringing my research to fruition by November. This platform will help share Emirati stories and history with a broader audience, preserving and celebrating our rich heritage. I am especially excited for the guidance and mentorship from Lorenzo Fiaschi and Salomé Zelic of GALLERIA CONTINUA, which will enhance the impact and appreciation of our cultural narrative.”

- Fatma Al Ali, Artist of Abu Dhabi Art 2024 Beyond Emerging Artists Programme