The three-channel video installation Practicing Devotion features various stages of Al Ghusain’s Sufi dervish practice, highlighting the dizzied, transcendent gaze after the whirling has stopped. Over a period of 30 days, the artist gave up caffeine, and made action paintings using wine, coffee and tea. Central to this period was a daily study of the 99 names of Allah, which were worked into an embroidery and card deck, which were featured on social media as a relational artwork.

In “Practicing Dying” we see the artist lying in the ubiquitous Savasana or corpse pose for forty minutes. The artist has practiced dying for forty days, starting with one minute of lying as still as possible and consecutively adding a minute per day. In response to the modern pressure of constant optimization, a minute is added each day to the artist’s Apple watch meditation timer. Instead of optimizing activity, the intention is to optimize inactivity. A death poem is written daily, inspired by the Japanese zen tradition.

On a universal level, the work is a response to impending human extinction, and the general sense of despair and eco-anxiety that pervades the age of the Anthropocene. On a personal level, the artist continues to grapple with the loss of loved ones, a dying homeland, and her own mortality.

Exhibited at:

Biography of a Passage, Art Dubai
March 2023

In Progress: In Process at Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi
May - August 2022

For two days audiences of the Open Studios at the Ashkal Alwan Home Workspace Program were able to sit and read the multimedia publication Abdul Rahman. The text in its final iteration can be found here.

Warm lighting and nice whiskey were offered alongside the reading experience. The limited-edition publication was designed by Studio Safar and installed in the Ashkal Alwan library flat and uncut, giving readers a more pronounced, participatory role in approaching and unpacking the narrative.