COLLECTION: Hala El Abora

Hala El Abora (b. 1999) is a Palestinian-Jordanian artist based in Dubai. Her practice is driven by her obsession with the concept of permanence, and the desperate need to preserve it. She is interested in the act and process of archiving; the act of making forms concrete and negotiating deterioration. In her work, intimate embroideries resonate against rigid and enduring mediums such as resin, plastic, and metal, she embodies experiences of yearning that cannot otherwise be made physical. El Abora holds a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Sharjah. Currently, she is a member of the Jameel Arts Youth Assembly (2022).

Artwork statement

A Topographical Collection of Encounters is the presentation of information gathered from Wasit Wetland Reserve. Wetlands are seasonal reserves of water, surrounded by vegetation. Sometimes, to settle on the green is to dismiss other features. A green shrub is a green shrub. A green shrub devoid of color is a shrub whose absence of color forces you to consider, shape, volume, size, and ultimately presence. 

Finding herself unable to displace the objects of her encounters from their site, El Abora collects their non-green measurements. A Topographical Collection of Encounters documents the instant right after an object is found in-situ. Chasing after permanence and preservation in her act of collection, El Abora creates digital scans of her encounters with the environment and objects found there, to be later printed as tangible Nylon documents. She alternates between scanning, photographing, and mapping. By mapping a landscape on foot and pondering on collecting its non-green measurements, she preserves the landscape’s form at the instant of encounter, not interfering with its placement or process but rather negotiating its own deterioration. El Abora continues to explore the duality between space and place, memory and non-memory, and attachment and detachment.