{"id":54894,"date":"2025-03-20T14:03:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T14:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/high-end-design-with-luxury-service-the-jeddah-edition\/"},"modified":"2025-03-20T14:03:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T14:03:00","slug":"high-end-design-with-luxury-service-the-jeddah-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=54894","title":{"rendered":"High-end design with luxury service: The Jeddah Edition\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Muhannad Shono: \u2018This work is fragile. It is not here forever\u2019\u00a0<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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\n\tRIYADH: Saudi contemporary artist Muhannad Shono is the sole representative of the Middle East at this year\u2019s Desert X \u2014 the site-specific international art exhibition in California\u2019s Coachella Valley \u2014 which runs until May 11.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tShono\u2019s piece, entitled \u201cWhat Remains,\u201d consists of 60 long strips of locally-sourced synthetic fabric infused with native sand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe fabric strips, orientated to align with the prevailing winds, follow the contours of the ground, fibrillating just above its surface,\u201d a description of the work on the Desert X website reads. \u201cAs the wind direction shifts, the natural process of aeolian transportation that forms dunes is interrupted, causing the fabric to tangle and form chaotic bundles. In this way, the ground itself becomes mutable \u2014 a restlessly changing relic or memory.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t
\n\t\tDesert X 2025 installation view of Muhannad Shono,\u00a0What Remains. (Photo by Lance Gerber, courtesy Desert X)<\/figcaption>
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\n\tThis isn\u2019t the first time Shono has created a large-scale installation in the desert. At Desert X AlUla in 2020, he presented \u201cThe Lost Path,\u201d composed of 65,000 black plastic tubes snaking through the Saudi desert \u2014 a work exploring themes of transformation, memory and impermanence. And while \u201cWhat Remains\u201d is an entirely separate piece of art, it also delves into those topics, as has much of Shono\u2019s work over the past decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI\u2019m first-generation Saudi,\u201d Shono tells Arab News. \u201cA year after I was born, I was given the nationality. For half of my life, I didn\u2019t feel Saudi. I\u2019d say Saudi was an authentic space that had specific motifs and cultural narratives that we were very disconnected from as a family. Why? Because we\u2019re immigrants; my father is not Saudi, and my mom is not Saudi.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBut now I think the narrative of what is \u2018Saudi\u2019 is changing,\u201d he continues. \u201cAnd it feels like it\u2019s part of this correction.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t \n\t\tDesert X 2025 installation view of Muhannad Shono,\u00a0What Remains. (Photo by Lance Gerber, courtesy Desert X)<\/figcaption>
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\n\tA feeling of not belonging was apparent in Shono\u2019s early artistic endeavors. He loved comic books and wanted to create his own because he couldn\u2019t find a true representation of himself in them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSaudis expect you to produce a figure they can relate to \u2014 with Saudi features or skin color \u2014 but I didn\u2019t think they could relate to me,\u201d he says.\u202f\u201cI was more referencing myself, and what I thought \u2018home\u2019 looked like, or the \u2018hero\u2019 looked like, so there was a disconnect there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThat disconnect continues to manifest in his work. \u201cYou can see it in Desert X and in a lot of my other projects tapping into materiality. I realized I couldn\u2019t really fully connect with the materiality of the narrative of being Saudi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAn interesting psychological thing that I haven\u2019t really come to grips with is that I\u2019m more comfortable doing work in Saudi because I\u2019m responding to this natural source material,\u201d he continues. \u201cI\u2019m disrupting \u2014 I\u2019m offering divergence, narratives that can spill out from that experience of the work. I\u2019m invested in the narrative of what\u2019s happening (in Saudi). I think it\u2019s the closest I\u2019ve felt to being \u2018at home.\u2019 Something that I was missing in the beginning was being connected to the narrative of the place, because if you engage with that narrative, you can call it home.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t \n\t\tDesert X 2025 installation view of Muhannad Shono,\u00a0What Remains. (Photo by Lance Gerber, courtesy Desert X)<\/figcaption>
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\n\t\u201cWhen I go to California, I miss the landscape (of Saudi) that I\u2019m contrasting. In California, it\u2019s not juxtaposed against the experience of growing up. I\u2019m still figuring out how to take these feelings and be able to show work overseas, because my backdrop is missing \u2014 the backdrop of Saudi.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tHis early interest in comic books, he says, was partly down to \u201cbeing able to create the world, the space, the setting for the story.\u201d That was also a reason he decided to study architecture at university.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI felt like it was creative problem solving,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of my projects that I did in college were in \u2018world making.\u2019 My graduation project ended up being the creation of a whole city, and how it would grow on a random landscape. I got kind of caught up in the urban planning of it \u2014 the streets, and the rivers flowing through it. I never really got to the architectural part of designing a building.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tBut that willingness to explore ideas in ways others might not has made Shono one of the Kingdom\u2019s most compelling contemporary artists. \u201cI\u2019ve created my own kind of material palette, or language, or library, that I use,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tIn his current work, \u201cThe land is holding the narrative on this adventure within the seemingly barren landscape,\u201d he explains. \u201cThese land fabrics become this idea of being able to roll up, carry and unroll ideas of belonging: What is home? How do we carry home?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t \n\t\tDesert X AlUla 2020 installation view of Muhannad Shono,\u00a0The Lost Path. (Photo by Lance Gerber, courtesy the artist, RCU, and Desert X)<\/figcaption>
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\n\tShono and the team who helped him install \u201cWhat Remains\u201d had to \u201cconstantly adapt expectations\u201d based on understanding the land and the environmental conditions, he says. It took them around a month, working seven or eight hours a day, to put it in place \u2014 flattening, aligning, and flipping fabric under Shono\u2019s direction. His vision was clear, but he also allowed instinct to guide him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThis work is fragile,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s an expression that is not here forever\u2026 that will change. And my ideas will change, the way I think about stories and concepts through my work. It\u2019s important to change.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tWith \u201cWhat Remains,\u201d he is offering that same opportunity to viewers. He wonders: \u201cWhat portals will you pass through, through this unrolling of the earth in front of you?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd change is a vital part of the work itself. \u201cThey\u2019re always different,\u201d Shono says of the fabric strips. \u201cAt some points, they\u2019re opaque and earth-like \u2014 almost like a rock. But when the wind picks up, they become lightweight \u2014 like sails \u2014 and they animate and come to life. And when the light hits as they move through the sky, they reveal their translucency and there\u2019s this projection of the trees and bushes and nature that they\u2019re almost wrapped around or sailing past.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tAlthough the \u201cWhat Remains\u201d seen by Desert X visitors on any particular day will not be the same \u201cWhat Remains\u201d seen by visitors on any other day, or even any other hour, one part of it, at least, is constant.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe work is a self-portrait,\u201d Shono says. \u201cAlways.\u201d\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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