Opening on Thursday, February 8th, at 7:30pm, Athr presents “The Clocks Are Striking Thirteen”, a group exhibition, as part of 21,39 Jeddah Arts. The participating artists are Aya Haidar, Ayman Yossri, Dana Awartani, Larissa Sansour, Maha Nasrallah, Moath Alofi, Mohammed Abdelrasoul, Mohammed Al Faraj, Mohammed Monaiseer, Muhannad Shono, Nasser Al Salem, Reem Al Nasser, Sara Abdu, Tamara Al Samerai, Wael Shawky and Zahra Al Ghamdi. The exhibition is curated by Maya El Khalil.

The entire premise behind her oeuvre is a fascination with the earth as a concept, a material and a historical narrative. It is as much about the process as it is about the end result. For six days, she scoured parts of Dubai’s desert in search for the right kind of sand.

“It’s important for me to smell the sand and feel it with my own hands, because those senses of touch and smell allow my work a synergy," says the artist.

“And if I don’t get that synergy, I can’t work. The sand should smell natural, like the smell of rain on land, the smell that manifests like steam when it rains."

Interestingly, this year’s exhibition inspiration for ‘Earth and Ever After’ comes from the Holy Qur’anic verses: “From this dust We created you, and in this We shall put you back, and from this, We shall raise you up once again.” (20:55) and “And Allah has made the Earth a spread for you, so that you may go about its broad ways.” (71:20).