Monira Al Qadiri: Deep Fate

Oil is everywhere in our everyday lives – in fuels, clothes, toys, make-up, buildings and roads. We use it to heat homes and the climate. Wars have been fought over it.

Oil’s dual role in generating wealth and causing crises is a central theme in the new exhibition by artist Monira Al Qadiri (b. 1983). The starting point for her new exhibition is the way that this raw material formed over millions of years has been almost surreptitiously interwoven into human history and destiny. The subject is personal for her: Al Qadiri grew up next door to oil refineries in Kuwait and experienced the Gulf War as a child.

The title, Deep Fate, refers to the origins of oil deep in the earth and also to the way that dependence on oil and breaking that dependence are a matter of life and death for humankind.

Al Qadiri’s working process is based on research on the cultural history of the Persian Gulf region. The exhibition features sculptures and video works from the last decade. Some of them are very large, while the smallest are only a centimetre in diameter.

Various sculptures echo the shapes of the blades and the molecular structures of the chemicals used in oil drilling. Al Qadiri’s works are characterised by iridescent rainbow colours that are reminiscent of oil and the shimmering surface of pearls.