Afra Al Dhaheri, Jadael (Braids), 2021
Bringing together more than 110 artworks by 46 artists based in the UAE, Proximities marks the largest presentation of contemporary art from the UAE ever staged in Asia. This time, presented at SeMA, the exhibition does not aim to define a national art scene. Instead, it asks quieter but more expansive questions such as how do we engage with the world, where do we meet each other and how do we keep and convey memories?
Curators Maya El Khalil and Eunju Kim shared their approach with Canvas. “We designed the exhibition to work with constantly shifting meanings, rather than seeking to stabilise or fix them. Ideas emerge from the understanding that, when perspectives come into contact, proximities, juxtapositions and meetings are live, open processes which can remain generative – they produce new thinking precisely because they are irresolvable.”
Structured across three artist co-curated sections, the exhibition delves into notions of proximity – not just geographic closeness, but emotional, political and perceptual nearness. “The three sections propose subjective ways of encountering the world rather than documenting how meanings change,” El Khalil and Kim explained. “We don’t measure shifts and we do not direct audiences to see any one connection. The exhibition is designed as an ongoing conversation – audiences will find their own resonances, which we can’t predict or measure.”
The first section, A Place for Turning, was proposed by Farah Al Qasimi (see page 32) and delves into the unseen realities and domestic domains that encourage new relationships with the world. A pinkish hue washes over the space, and there is an uncanny, whimsical exchange as interior realms are simultaneously familiar yet distant. They become sites for imagination and escapism, opening doors to new spaces as the social landscapes shift on the outside. For example, Shaikha Al Ketbi’s installation Book (2024) and Swinging (2020) blur fiction and reality, absence and presence, while Afra Al Dhaheri’s monumental installation, Jadael (Braids) (2021), blurs the lines between public and intimate relationships. Her work references hair braiding and also delves into hair as a vessel of memories and time. Al Qasimi’s photography, such as Drying Rack (2018) and Conversation (2023), leaves viewers with an uneasiness, as if stumbling upon private moments.