I WENT AWAY AND FORGOT YOU

2017

Dana Awartaniʼs mixed media installation, I Went Away and Forgot You. A While Ago I Remembered. I Remembered Iʼd Forgotten You. I Was Dreaming, is a call to celebrate the beauty of traditional Islamic design and architecture, and offers up a ritual that involves construction and destruction. 

Awartani has meticulously assembled over a number of days a large and immaculate geometric floor design made with locally sourced sand which the artist has previously dyed herself using natural pigments that derive from stones and plants, staying true to her appreciation for traditional techniques of making art. The pattern she created is also shaped on the traditional Islamic tile work, once common in most Arab and Islamic homes.

The video work was created by Awartani once she had completed the installation on the floor of an old abandoned house, located in the old part of Jeddah, where the artist’s grandparent’s generation used to live. It shows her destroying the art work by sweeping up the sand tiles as a symbolic commentary on the modern-day destruction of our cultural identity and heritage, which has been a result of a carless and an obsessive need for a more modernized and industrial society without the conscious awareness of what we are leaving behind. With this final gesture, the artist aims to highlight the importance of preserving and cherishing what in essence is a crucial part of the collective identity in the region, not as an attack on modernization, but rather pointing out the importance of the old and new co-existing and living together side by side. 

The house that the artist has chosen to create the piece plays a crucial role in the artwork, as the building was a typical home amongst the wealthy local elite during the late 50ʼs and early 60ʼs, and it was during this time that buildings in Jeddah broke from traditional Hejazi architecture and adopted a more European aesthetic, imbued with forward looking notions of “civilization” modelled on a western ideal, and in turn completely abandoning their own cultural identity. 

Awartaniʼs symbolism extends from what lies on the floor and what is projected on the wall that come together as a cautionary tale, contemplating the duality of creation and destruction, past and present. The artist seeks to raise awareness about the importance of celebrating and preserving the timeless language of geometric aesthetics as a universal language of beauty and harmony. 

I Went Away and Forgot You. A While Ago I Remembered. I Remembered Iʼd Forgotten You. I Was Dreaming, 2017, Mixed media installation with sand and natural pigments, single-channel video, with no sound, 22 minutes. © Dana Awartani

Installation shot of I Went Away and Forgot You. A While Ago I Remembered. I Remembered Iʼd Forgotten You. I Was Dreaming, at Franco Noero gallery, Turin, Italy. © Dana Awartani