MONIRA AL QADIRI
CHIMERA

EXPO 2020 DUBAI, DUBAI, UAE
PERMANENT INSTALLATION SINCE 2021
Chimera (2021)
Permanent Aluminum Sculpture
450 x 470 x 490 cmAt just under five metres tall, CHIMERA is Monira Al Qadiri’s largest sculpture to date, and her first permanent public installation. This gigantic iridescent form is based on the shape of an oil drill. Due to its imposing scale and reflective colours, the sculpture looks like it could be a futuristic creature that has landed from outer space. Before the discovery of oil, for hundreds of years the economy of the Gulf coast had been based on pearl hunting, where entire cultures were created around this precious object. The title CHIMERA refers to a mythical being composed of parts from various animals. Through this sculpture, the artist attempts to fuse the pre- and post-oil histories of the Gulf region into a single body, creating aesthetic connections between pearls and oil through their shared colours, materiality, symbolism, ecology, and economies. CHIMERA reimagines the past, present, and future of the region from which the artist hails.

Explore a virtual 360 tour of Chimera. 

© Images Roman Mensing

FEATURED ARTIST

MONIRA AL QADIRI
Monira Al Qadiri (b. 1983) is a Kuwaiti visual artist born in Senegal and educated in Japan. Spanning sculpture, installation, film, and performance, Al Qadiri’s multifaceted practice is based on research into the cultural histories of the Gulf region. Her interpretation of the Gulf’s so-called “petro-culture” is manifested through speculative scenarios that take inspiration from science fiction, autobiography, traditional practices, and pop culture, resulting in uncanny and covertly subversive works that destabilize mythologies of statecraft and modernization as well as traditional notions of gender. Tracing the delicate ecologies threate...
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