Continuing on a previous question of how in a hyper-connected world, does one place one's coordinates in the physical, metaphysical, and the digital citizenry. This series draws a mental collage using the everyday, references to virtual reality and old photos of the artist’s father in his youth to make up a fictional world through images.

Continuing on a previous question of how in a hyper-connected world, does one place one's coordinates in the physical, metaphysical, and the digital citizenry. This series draws a mental collage using the everyday, references to virtual reality and old photos of the artist’s father in his youth to make up a fictional world through images.

Continuing on a previous question of how in a hyper-connected world, does one place one's coordinates in the physical, metaphysical, and the digital citizenry. This series draws a mental collage using the everyday, references to virtual reality and old photos of the artist’s father in his youth to make up a fictional world through images.

Continuing on a previous question of how in a hyper-connected world, does one place one's coordinates in the physical, metaphysical, and the digital citizenry. This series draws a mental collage using the everyday, references to virtual reality and old photos of the artist’s father in his youth to make up a fictional world through images.

Sifting through the absolute, the predefined, constructs of anxiety, and the absurdity of the agreed-upon in a time of excess. How does one place one's coordinates in the physical, metaphysical, and the digital citizenry? It is said that the gravitational forces exerted by the planets affect the circulation of human bodies and emotions as much as they affect the oceans. Youtube and google image search help to assemble an uncomfortable space for a question spanning practices of compulsion and purification.

Disarrayed glimpses of multiple narratives such as that of: familial domestic tensions, a juvenile dream of going to Japan, the tendency to smash TVs in moments of anger, and eating fish. While using scenes from the artist’s surroundings and life in Saudi Arabia, like streets or malls, it never attempts to provide the whole picture, but takes a rhizomatic approach to tell a story of the everyday life.

Nasser Al-Salem’s work City Nomads is a movingly nostalgic piece that is a drastic departure from the artist’s previous calligraphic work. The subject, one that is close to his heart, is of the nomadic traditions that are forcibly disappearing by the ever-expanding cities and fast-paced modernization. The work comprises of hanging traditional tent flaps (that made-up the entrances of tents) on a number of scaffolds.  Each ten-flap is marked with calligraphic verses and indications of modern-day ”tagging” that geo-records their location. The scaffolds are assembled in a way that force the viewer to explore and discover the tent-flaps within the skeletal structure. The assembly of tent-flaps, a traditional material for constructing the homes of Nomads, lay in stark contrast to the use of scaffolds, a modern day means for constructing buildings. Nasser’s hollow structure alludes to the flimsy and unstable, and appears to both question and highlight the foundation in which culture and tradition will continue to exist or disappear.

Tent-making was in fact the artist’s family’s main trade for several generations.  The artist has many fond memories of growing up in their Mecca shop, which was eventually closed down as plastic constructions replaced tents as shelters for Hajj pilgrims. 

Nomads, by definition, leave no trace to mark their presence when they move to another location. This means that they actually have no tangible heritage.  If their way of life disappears, there will be nothing but their oral traditions to prove they ever existed.