Hands, threads and empty doorways: Photography as a memory map at Manarat Al Saadiyat

Seven artists present works that are linked by a shared concern: how people adapt

Curated by Mouza Al Matrooshi, the show marks the culmination of a four-month residency at the Photography Studio. Victor Besa / The National

Photography has always been a tool of reckoning.

In moments of transition, it becomes a way of mapping change – both in the world and within the self. Cartographies, Revised, the new exhibition at Manarat Al Saadiyat, is anchored in this impulse.

Curated by Mouza Al Matrooshi, the show marks the culmination of a four-month residency at the Photography Studio.

The seven participating artists present works that vary in form and subject, but are linked by a shared concern: how people adapt. The images reveal what is salvaged and surrendered during change, as well as how “home” is made and remade in the process.

Take Fares Al Kaabi’s project, Roots around our hearts and Weeping Roola.

His photographs frame old doors, broken windows and other abandoned spaces. The images are haunted by erasure. Al Kaabi grew up in a neighbourhood in Al Ain built in the 1970s, a place where he knew every nook and every family on the block. Today, that area no longer exists.

Fares Al Kaabi grew up in a now-demolished neighbourhood in Al Ain. Victor Besa / The National

Al Kaabi and his family lived there for more than 30 years, until they became “one of the last families to move out”. His images were taken while wandering the area; it was only when he was developing the photographs that he realised they paid homage to a demolished neighbourhood – a now-inaccessible part of his past.

“When I started to put the photos together, I started to be emotional. I realised I’m not going to be there any more. Those places will not be there any more,” he says.

Portal-like doors and windows recur throughout Al Kaabi's work. Victor Besa / The National

Doors and windows recur throughout the work. For Al Kaabi, they’re more than architectural fragments. “Each door, for me, is representing something,” he says. “You can see it from your own perspective. There might be secrets and there might be hopes. They might be broken dreams.” Some are closed and left behind. Others are opened and shared, allowing “stories with the community”.

If Al Kaabi’s photographs mourn the loss of a home, Anna Jopp’s reflect how one is made and maintained.

Her series, On Gardening, began after Jopp moved to the UAE from Budapest, where she had been working on a project about climate change and personal territory. After arriving in Abu Dhabi, she found herself drawn to the green spaces that punctuate the city. Some were meticulously maintained by municipalities, while others were tended to privately, sometimes with improvised systems of irrigation and care.

“There’s a lot of effort to maintain this,” she says. “Given the climate, it’s quite incredible.”

Anna Jopp is impressed by the UAE's irrigation and gardening efforts. Victor Besa / The National

Her images are devoid of people, but human presence is everywhere. A plant is watered through a threaded leaking pipe. Community gardens thrive as lushly as the palm fronds decorating municipality parks.

“It might seem like nothing, but it says so much about whoever is around,” she says. The decision to keep people out of the frame was deliberate. “I was more interested in those little signs. That somebody is there, taking care of [these plants], a human being you don’t necessarily see.”

Each body of work in Cartographies, Revised seems to echo the next. The exhibition unfolds like a sequence of overlapping maps, where one artist’s co-ordinates lead into another’s terrain.

Where Jopp’s images capture subtle forms of presence, and Al Kaabi ponders on absence, Hessa Al Zaabi’s work moves between. The photographer layers images to reflect memory and transience, as well as homemaking.

Hessa Al Zaabi feels a personal sense of loss when a house in her neighbourhood is demolished. Victor Besa / The National

The Soul Still Remains began with her own neighbourhood in Jumeirah, a place she’s long documented, but that, like much of Dubai, is always changing.

“They always demolish houses,” she says. “It’s part of my daily life. So when the house is gone, I feel a personal loss.”

The images combine photographs of interiors and exteriors of the homes, overlaid, interwoven and often inextricable to the eye. The approach was new for Al Zaabi. “Usually, I like to keep my images as raw as possible,” she says. “Minimal edits. I don’t really like to overdo it. But this time I said, let me try another approach.”

Trees merge with living rooms, windows with family memorabilia. “Some of the images have a lot of personal items that people have,” she says. What grounds the project is Al Zaabi’s desire to understand whether her own discomfort with change is singular or shared. She found, through interviews, that her neighbours were often more accepting than she expected.

Al Zaabi's images combine photographs of interiors and exteriors of homes, overlaid and interwoven. Victor Besa / The National

“I was wondering, am I the only one who feels this way? Am I really unable to adapt to the change?” she says. One neighbour told her, no matter where he moves, he will grow roots of community wherever he goes.

The insight was clarifying for Al Zaabi. “Sometimes,” she says, “it's not about the place. It’s about the people. But I feel like the place plays a big role as well.”

Like Al Zaabi’s overlays, Yousif Albadi’s photographs navigate the space between what is visible and what is felt. But while her work seeks to make the cusp of change concrete, Albadi’s remains deliberately unspecific. His urban landscapes are not explicitly labelled, and that is partly the point.

“It’s not about where’s this place,” he says. “But what I can feel in the space and how it's really shaping me.”

Yousif Albadi uses objects that stimulate memory, from keys to Lego blocks. Victor Besa / The National

His photographs depict layered, congested cityscapes, as well as more quiet and contemplative spaces – brilliantly framed with a keen eye for composition. They are also informed by personal memory and material detail. The photographs are tied, quite literally, with glass shards, keys, Lego pieces and even business cards from shops.

For Albadi, the objects are touchstones.

Albadi's works display a keen eye for composition. Victor Besa / The National

“So you can consider it as a trigger, as a stimulant for the memory,” he explains. Albadi’s contribution was shaped by dialogue within the residency. “The kind of discussion we had here is really enriching this concept for me,” he says. “Especially when I started to interact with my colleagues.”

Albadi’s work can be read as a search for emotional traces in the city. Aman Ali, meanwhile, locates them in the domestic. Labours of Love is a portrait of maternal presence told entirely through hands.

“It started off with my mom,” he says. “She always put this hand cream, and then one day I noticed how her hands have changed over the years.

Photographer Aman Ali is colour-blind. Victor Besa / The National

“It just suddenly switched something on. I was like, oh, this is not what her hands used to be like when I was younger. And I can see how they have aged and how they've always been working for me.”

The photographs – all shot on black-and-white film using a vintage Yashica camera – are unframed, printed on canvas to enhance the texture. “I wanted to focus on the textures. If I were to shoot it on colour, I would lose all the texture that's showing up in the hands,” he says.

The decision was also personal, as Ali is colour-blind.

Ali's works are unframed to enhance their texture. Victor Besa / The National

Ali’s images include not only his mother, but also other women in his family. They are each pictured in states of care or quiet resilience. What connects them is touch.

“I didn’t want it to be completely taut,” he explains. “I wanted people to see the imperfections.” The creases on the canvas mirror the creases in the hands – both marked by time and use.

Cartographies, Revised is running until September 1