Amma Baad (There After) was first presented in 2019 at the Delfina Foundation as Nasser Al Salem’s first solo exhibition in the UK. The show which was curated by Maya El Khalil explored the relationship between language, time, and space through a series of sculptural and paper works of the words Amma Baad (There After) in Arabic script.

Often found in formal written correspondence, Amma Baad (There After) is an expression that gains meaning through function, following initial salutations and greetings, while preceding – and perhaps anticipating – the main subject or story to follow. Through calligraphic manipulations, Al Salem explores the potential of the phrase’s peculiar space-time; the idiom synthesizes timeframes, pivoting thought from one moment, one place, to the next.

A formal flourish, it implies deferral, creating a liminal place of pause. In experimental meditations in sculpture and on paper, Al Salem expands and collapses conceptions of spatial and temporal order, imagining new dimensions where possible alternatives to the here and now exist.

The exhibition opens on 01 December at Space 03, ATHR Jeddah.