Presented her art project at Jameel Center in Dubai

Mona Ayyash: Art sometimes expresses simple and ordinary things

Ayyash: Art always carries a message, but the message should not be heavy and philosophical.

Photography: Patrick Castillo

A group of bodily movements of five people expressing the emotions of the body, presented by the artist Mona Ayyash in her art project "Folded Stomachs", which was presented within the group exhibition "The Distance from Here", which opened at Jameel Arts Center in Dubai.

The work carries the artist’s experience in working on video and photography by collecting videos of segmented gestures, and it is filmed by five people from the Emirates, who were invited to explore movement exercises with their bodies.

Ayyash believes that art always carries a message, but the message should not be heavy and philosophical, but can be light and enjoyable. Art does not have to be permanently expressive, as it is possible to produce works that express simple situations and ordinary things in life.

And participated in the video, which was implemented by Ayyash with the support of Exhibition 421, in Mina Zayed in Abu Dhabi, Ines de Almeida, Olivia Duncan, Muhammad Al-Jathi, Shamma Khoury and Altamash Oruj. The video shows a close look at the body in private and confined areas, responding and interacting with the components of each space, including shadows, edges, corners, doors, windows, mirrors and lighting. The images in the videos are passed sequentially, stacked on top of each other or next to each other, and constantly changing, decreasing and piling up in an unorganized way.

The work is divided into three parts, the first part of the work is the starting point, and here the movements are simple in this part, with confusion in the gestures, while we can notice more speed and higher accuracy in the second part, as the gestures begin to form their own visual language, and quickly interact Movements and layers of each other as the scenes progress. The third part reveals another dimension, as the use of technology is clear in the setup process, and the screens are visible inside the screen. They respond to videos of previous gestures, and imitate each other. The original source of the movements is blurred with actions being copied, repeated and redirected.

About working on this project, the artist, Mona Ayyash, spoke to "Emirates Today", and said: "The work embodies my great interest in simple physical movements, as I worked on collecting clips from the videos that were presented to me and belong to five volunteers who participated in filming the movements." Speaking about the details of the idea of ​​the work, Ayyash pointed out that she had opened an application for participation through Exhibition 421 in Abu Dhabi, and through the application a group of people submitted, and she chose five to photograph themselves, while doing a set of physical movements and exercises that were done collectively through Zoom application.Ayyash pointed out that she did not meet the people participating in the project, and they also do not know each other, noting that she worked at a later stage to build the work by collecting it in a sequential manner. There is a dialogue between the physical movements, and some videos were a reaction from one video to another. , what made it appear as a special language, it is impossible to predict who started the movements, and thus it becomes a language that does not have a writer or a founder.

And about the message from the work, she noted that it is an exercise, explaining that she had worked a lot in the past on the image of sports, especially some types of international sports, and for this the video came as a continuation of previous experiences and not with the aim of providing a specific message, noting that the results were always surprising and distinctive.

And about the period during which the videos were filmed, she noted that it was during Corona, in the winter of 2020, and this was part of the project, as a project was worked on with people through the Internet, and thus it was a test of the experience as a whole, but in the end it was a special experience.

special opportunity

The participation of the artist Mona Ayyash in the Jameel Arts Center is the first for her in the center, and she saw that the presentation of works within the group exhibition, along with a group of works by distinguished artists, constitutes a great addition to her.

She considered that some experiences are important in the artist's career, noting that she participated in the resident artist program, which is one of the programs that can be described as opening doors for artists who cannot work independently as well as in a place designated for them, and therefore it is considered one of the distinguished programs that leaves a wonderful impact. The artist has.

• “Showing my work in a group exhibition alongside a group of distinguished artists is a great addition to me.”

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news