One of the best things about this year's Art Dubai is that you can still feel remnants of it around the city. Until the mid-June, Maria Thereza Alves' installation Wake: Flight of Birds and People is installed in a warehouse in Alserkal Avenue for the public to visit.
It is a two-part work that includes Seed Catcher, a living installation in the new Yard of Alserkal Avenue, and a nearby exhibition featuring archival and new photographs, drawings and found objects that evidence the artist's research. The work takes plants and seeds in the UAE as its starting point, and connects those botanical histories to stories of peoples, goods and animals in the region, weaving together different narratives and revealing buried histories. I took the time to ask Alves some questions about her work. Hopefully the answers will inspire you to go and visit before the end of its run.
Anna Seaman: I found your installation of seeds at Alserkal Avenue a really fascinating choice of subject. You have been working with seeds for many years and produced projects such as the Seeds of Change project in Bristol, England. Why do seeds interest you and how do you use them as a metaphor for our lives?
Maria Thereza Alves: I am interested in seeds not so much as a metaphor but as witnesses to histories that might appear random but in reality reflect economic policies, migrations, trade, movement by animals and birds or the wind. They are witnesses that crop up in our cities, around any corner and are testimonies to a complexity of history that we usually do not consider. The work, Seeds of Change is concerned with ballast flora which is a category of plants that has become part of our landscape due to the use of ballast in mercantile shipping. Ballast was loaded onto sailing ships to balance the vessel. Sand, stones, earth, bricks and whatever else was cheap and easily available was used as ballast. Along with the ballast which was picked up in any port in the Americas, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe, seeds accidentally came along and were unloaded in port upon arrival.
AS: Why is this particularly relevant to the UAE where there is a widely varied and transient population?
MTA: For Al Serkal, I was commissioned to make the work, Wake. It is based on tracing the possibilities of how seeds could arrive in Dubai. It therefore goes beyond the port to include all possibilities of movement which would result in the probability of a seed arriving in the city. Usually in the Wake works, I select a specific site and limit my research to that particular area, which can be a just a few streets. However, in Dubai, the situation was different. The sand on which Dubai is built upon is constantly moved or moving; piles are shifted from one area to another for construction. And most importantly, the wind - the winds that come from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan and also Syria and Jordon bring seeds and cause yet further movements. Each movement results in historical complexities of inclusiveness of the history of neighbors and others. In Dubai, where four out of five inhabitants are not native, add a wonderful complexity of histories which might lead to the arrival of seeds.
AS: Which areas did you focus on particularly for this project?
MTA: For Wake in Dubai, I concentrated on areas such as the Liwa Oasis and Buraimi Oasis as well as the port. These places have long and varied histories: trade, wars and invasions, chance meetings, the gift of a horse, unpacking of a suitcase or a sand grouse stopping for a drink at an oasis that happens to be on a major caravan route or an accountant from China arriving for an international conference in Dubai. These astounding movements and migrations contribute to the arrival of seeds in Dubai. As a result the work is titled Wake: The Flight of People and Birds. In the outside space at AlSerkal is the Seed Catcher, a sculpture made with rubble from the port in Dubai. It is in the form of dunes in order to provide a shelter for seeds to arrive and perhaps stay and germinate.
AS: Your work is an ongoing project that continues as a research into the native seeds and plants of the UAE - is this often how you conduct your projects, or unique to the Dubai one?
MTA: I am generally interested in situations that question social circumstances about what we think we know and who we think we are and look instead at where and how we actually are at this time. Therefore Wake (as well as Seeds of Change) are works which are concerned only with non-native plants which are usually perceived as not being an integral element of the "native" landscape. But life is not that straightforward, the much beloved Ghaf tree is originally from eastern Africa.
AS: The work was an Art Dubai commission but placed outside the fair in the art district - how important was that for your work and how did it change the interaction of the work?
MTA: Space is at a premium at an art fair and AlSerkal offered the possibility of a large exhibition space as well as an outdoor space which allowed the work to develop as it needed.
AS: Lastly, if there is one thing that a visitor would take away with them from seeing your Alserkal Avenue installation, what would it be?
MTA: That we are in the privileged position of being in the midst of convoluted processes of place making; it is happening at every moment as we move around Dubai.
* Wake: Flight of Birds and People is commissioned by Art Dubai in collaboration with Alserkal Avenue. It will be on show until June 15, at Alserkal Avenue, The Yard & Warehouse F53. Opening hours are from 9am-7pm.