And the Mirrors are Many: An Ode to Creation and Memory

This editorial piece marks my first article on LinkedIn, and I couldn't have chosen a better topic than 421 Arts Campus currently running exhibition, And the Mirrors are Many.

In her debut exhibition, the culmination of a one-year curatorial development programme at 421 in Abu Dhabi, the young Iraqi curator Mona Al-Jadir reconsiders how institutional memory can be displayed. The exhibition, titled And the Mirrors are Many, transforms the museum into a spectral site of haunting and individual remembrance.

And The Mirrors Are Many examines institutional repositories of memory — the museum, the memorial, and the archive — and asks why and how we remember. By investigating these contemporary modes of remembering, the exhibition examines the relationship between memory and history and reflects on the aesthetics, techniques, provenance, and language used in the memory-making process.?This exhibition, whose title alludes to the Mahmoud Darwish poem On the Last Evening on This Earth, asks us to investigate our shared histories through the lens of a calamity that has persisted throughout human history.?

I recall a similar trail of thought that launched 421 into the contemporary arts sphere, with their debut exhibition, Lest We Forget. Lest We Forget is an innovative cultural initiative that combines digital archives, oral histories, and contemporary art. Through a combination of research, art, exhibitions, and publications, the community-based initiative documents and preserves the vernacular photography, oral histories, and cultural traditions of earlier generations of UAE Nationals and facilitates an intergenerational dialogue with their descendants. This recurring theme of creation and memory is beguiling and I'm always pleasantly surprised with how the curators at 421 bring this theme to life. I am not sure if this is just my personal impression, having been and raised in Abu Dhabi and possibly feel a strong connection with questions on memory and belonging.

Going back to The Mirrors Are Many, the selection of artists and the execution of their concepts was thought-provoking, to say the least. Contributing artists in this exhibition are Maitha Abdalla, Rand Abdul Jabbar , Reem Al Menhali, Emii Alrai, Moza Almatrooshi, Nasser Alzayani , Hadeyeh Badri , Rohini Devasher, Vikram Divecha , Mirella Salame , Sara Smarrazzo, Dima Srouji , and Fatima Uzdenova.?

Two works stood out for me, and to this day, I can feel their haunting beauty: Nasser Alzayani's Wardat Al Mustashar, or the Adviser's Flower.

Nasser Alzayani is a Bahraini-American artist (born in 1991 in Manama, Bahrain) who resides in Abu Dhabi and works there.

Nasser's practise is a research-driven documentation of time and location expressed through text, image, and found and cast objects. His most recent work incorporates both factual and fictitious archaeology to investigate alternative narratives of collective experience. This comes to life when viewing his exhibit. Consisting of a collection of pressed oleander flower clippings, 40 retyped diary entries, digital negatives of archival herbarium samples displayed in light boxes, the installation tells the history of how British colonial rule introduced the oleander flower to the region. What's poignant about this little piece of information and page from history is that the flower is a very toxic plant. According to Colorado State University, Oleandrin and neriine are two very potent cardiac glycosides (cardenolides) found in all parts of the plant. Red flowered varieties of oleander appear to be more toxic. Oleander remains toxic when dry. A single leaf can be lethal to a child eating it, although mortality is generally very low in humans.

The second work that captured me was Dima Srouji's But She Still Wears Kohl and Smells like Roses.

Dima Srouji is an architect and visual artist who investigates the earth as a profound cultural space.

Srouji searches for prospective ground fractures where fictitious liberation is conceivable.?She works with glass, text, archives, maps, plaster casts, and film, perceiving each as an evocative object and emotional companion that helps her query what cultural heritage and public space mean in the context of the greater Middle East as well as Palestine. Together with archaeologists, anthropologists, sound designers, and glassblowers, she develops her initiatives.?The fragility of the exhibit and its context was contrasted by its accessibility and mobility. It made me question the preciousness of our tangible and intangible cultural heritage and how to work with it and around it as time passes.

If you still haven't seen the exhibition yet, it's on till May 8th. And it seems you can book for a guided tour with the curator herself! More details here: https://www.421.online/en/whats-on/curator-led-tours-of-and-the-mirrors-are-many-/