COLLECTION: Fatma Al Ali

Fatma Al Ali (b. 1994, UAE) is a multidisciplinary artist who works with themes of perception, materiality, memory, weight, and tension. Her work examines social restrictions and the human condition while studying materiality and form. Questions of strength and delicacy are present in her practice, and the perception of what a material is supposed to be is in opposition to how it is presented. Al Ali received her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from the University of Sharjah in 2018 and completed the Salama Bint Hamdan Emerging Artist Fellowship (SEAF) in 2019/2020. 

Artwork Statement

Gardens within the gulf is a relatively new ‘enforced’ idea, as societies were previously satisfied by the enjoyment of natural landscapes and surroundings. Highlighting the shift towards increased human intervention in landscapes in the region was a way of addressing aspects of colonial history that have been overlooked, and reframing them from a local perspective. Researching archival portals of British colonial bureaucracy in the Gulf states, in search of the possible roots of these changes, the tone in these documents stood out.

Discovering in one of those documents that the British replaced the cultivation of purple carrots with orange carrots, which claimed to be superior. Dissecting the language of these colonial documents and thinking of a carrot and its existence, or lack of it, wondering what other elements have been wiped out entirely, is a view into the role of so-called protection and what sacrifices come from that.