PAST

The Mosaic Rooms presents three young female artists from Saudi Arabia. In Shift, Dana Awartani, Zahrah Al-Ghamdi and Reem Al-Nasser respond to their experiences of accelerated change in their country, in the built environment of their cities and in domestic spaces. Caught between a future driven by globalisation and rapid urban development, and a past at risk of erasure, the artists consider their own position, and reflect on what is important to them as individuals and as part of the wider collective.
Awartani’s piece I went away and forgot you. A while ago I remembered. I remembered I’d forgotten you. I was dreaming, is a film showing a light filled room in an abandoned house, with what appears to be a traditional Islamic tiled floor. The patterned floor is an intricate installation of hand dyed sand and as we watch the artist steps into frame to sweep it away. The work reflects on the impact of urban development in Jeddah, and what the artist views as a social obsession with progress at a cost of losing what is left behind.