On a Timeline: 2024 MFA Graduate Show presents the work of graduate students completing the two-year Master of Fine Arts in Art and Media at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD).
Marking the third year of collaboration and an expanded partnership between 421 Arts Campus and NYUAD, the exhibition showcases the research and experimentation of the 2024 MFA cohort who visualize questions and ideas in expansive ways that provide valuable insights into our contemporary global condition. On a Timeline features projects by Sara Alahbabi, Ciel Arbour-Boehme, Zara Mahmood, Fatima Al Romaithi, and Farah Soltani. The exhibition features explorations through drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, and mixed media.
Through the intimate and mindful practice of walking, Sara Alahbabi explores neighborhoods in Abu Dhabi, specifically the streets and alleys of Al Khalidiya, where she reflects on her relationship to the city and its communities. Alahbabi’s project challenges stereotypes of the cityscape and considers the artist’s position as an Emirati woman traversing these locations.
In Ciel Arbour-Boehme’s work, audiences are compelled to question and abandon habitual responses by navigating a series of spatiotemporal disjunctions. Here, the artist is not concerned with control but rather disruption, presenting a work that invites visitors to respond intuitively to a space that features corridors, surveillance screens, eerie surfaces, and nudges.
Zara Mahmood’s project reflects the dissonance between the haziness of the sky in Dubai and the reality of pollution in the city’s atmosphere. The artist presents intimate studies of the boundless landscape above, including a series of observational drawings and photo-transfers on handmade leaf paper. These works probe the materiality of the sky and the invisible phenomena lying beyond the periphery of vision.
Exploring nostalgia and childhood mischief, Fatima Al Romaithi delves into the cultural history of the United Arab Emirates through a playful study of treats and candies from the 90s.
Farah Soltani presents a series of sculptural forms, created based on inspiration from the everyday and the ordinary. Taking these structures through numerous articulations, each of her works embodies a particular identity that comes into dialogue with the surrounding space based on its position and location.
This collaboration between 421 and NYUAD supports the production of emergent contemporary practices from the region through facilitating explorations by MFA graduates. The yearly exhibition offers graduate students a platform to showcase their artistic research and growth developed throughout their academic program, emphasizing the significance of sharing their work with the broader community.
The two-year Master of Fine Arts in Art and Media at NYUAD is the first program of its kind in the UAE. The program leverages Abu Dhabi's location as a global hub for the exchange and dialogue in the arts and culture.
View and download the exhibition press kit on this link.
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