How being lost at sea inspired Mohammed Kazem's digital work at Art Dubai

The pioneering Emirati artist is unveiling an installation commissioned by Julius Baer

Mohamed Kazem at Art Dubai. Antonie Robertson / The National

When Mohammed Kazem was in his twenties, he had an experience that would have a profound impact on his artistic output – he was lost in open waters.

This was in the mid-1990s. The Emirati artist had gone fishing with his friends when he slipped overboard. Unfortunately, no one noticed him fall. The sound of the engine was too loud and no one heard his cries for help. Kazem remained alone, floating in the Gulf with no land or boat in sight.

“They lost me for more than half an hour in the deep sea,” Kazem says. “I couldn’t see the city. The horizon surrounded me across 360 degrees. You can’t tell where you are, or which way to go.”

Luckily for Kazem, one of his friends had a GPS, which he used to retrace the boat’s trip and eventually found the young artist. The experience, nevertheless, left a mark on Kazem. Not so much fear of the sea, but of an appreciation of its grandness and its carelessness for human borders. It also instilled in him a fascination for GPS co-ordinates.

Kazem has produced several works that have been informed by latitudes and longitudes, most notably with his series, Directions. The most recent iteration of the series is a digital installation that he is presenting at this year’s Art Dubai.

Mohammed Kazem will present Directions (Merging), a digital work commissioned by Julius Baer. Photo: Art Dubai

The work, titled Directions (Merging), is a commission by Julius Baer. The Swiss wealth management company has been a partner at Art Dubai since 2015. It has commissioned artists, including Refik Anadol in 2023 and Krista Kim in 2024, to present digital installations at the annual fair. Kazem’s Directions (Merging) is the company’s third major digital commission. It puts a novel twist on the artist’s use of GPS co-ordinates by incorporating animations of water.

The work will be featured in a purpose-built room, similar to previous presentations by Julius Baer at Art Dubai. The walls will be filled with co-ordinates from shorelines across the globe, while a video backdrop of rolling waves will stream across. Dubai’s co-ordinates, meanwhile, will occupy the centre of the space.

Directions (Merging) touches upon resource exchange and the interconnectedness in the modern world, while also reflecting on Dubai’s evolution as a global hub.

“Dubai is a meeting point for people coming from different countries,” Kazem says. “We are living in the country with 200 nationalities. And Art Dubai is a global event. The co-ordinates, similarly, come from all over the world.”

Kazem was featured by the National Pavilion UAE at the Venice Biennale in a solo exhibition titled Walking on Water. Photo: Mohammed Kazem

Kazem says the installation went through several revisions before a final version was decided on. For the animation, he worked with Zlatan Filipovic, a mixed-media artist and associate professor at the American University of Sharjah. The duo studied the layout of the space, considering the colour palette of the work and how many sensory details they could incorporate in the installation.

“We thought, at first, to use the sound of the waves. But then decided we don’t need it because it would be too much for that space,” Kazem says. Another change was the colour of the co-ordinates themselves. While teaser images have shown the latitudes and longitudes in black, Kazem says they ultimately decided to present them in white instead, for better contrast.

Kazem says the work he is presenting at Art Dubai can be further developed to fit other contexts. He daydreams of a sprawling piece displayed in an outdoor public setting, although that would present new challenges.

“It can be outdoors,” he says. “It can be on an LED billboard. Of course, we have to study the climate. With indoor projects, we don't have issues. There's no dust, no humidity, no water.”

For Kazem, GPS co-ordinates have become an artistic tool, similar to paint. With them, he says he can capture abstract aspects, such as water currents and the tide.

In 2019, Kazem presented From Place to Place at Abu Dhabi’s Al Hosn Festival. Photo: Mohammed Kazem

He has spent years immersing himself in the medium, using it in different contexts and across materials. His singular take on the concept was highlighted during the 2013 Venice Biennale in a solo exhibition by the National Pavilion UAE.

Walking on Water was, at the time, a culmination of Kazem’s Directions series. It featured a chamber projecting images and sounds of a dark and turbulent sea. It also featured photographs of a 2002 project, where Kazem would toss wooden panels imprinted with GPS co-ordinates into the open waters, mimicking the terrifying experience of his youth.

Also in 2013, he presented another iteration from his Directions series. This time, at the old campus of NYU Abu Dhabi. The artist mounted vinyls with co-ordinates on the windows of the university. The sunlight streaming into the space cast the co-ordinates on the floor. That same year, he presented a project at Sharjah’s Maraya Art Centre, showing co-ordinates in blue across several walls in a dark space.

His co-ordinates have made use of unexpected materials in other projects. With chalk, he scribbled co-ordinates on stone blocks in a project in Bodh Gaya in India. In 2019, he presented a work in Abu Dhabi’s Al Hosn Festival that showed wooden cutouts of co-ordinates floating in a body of water.

Mohamed Kazem at Art Dubai. Antonie Robertson / The National

As a pioneer in the UAE’s contemporary art scene, Kazem says he has been encouraged and inspired by the rapid growth of the country, as well as its taste for the visual arts.

“We now have museums such as the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and Louvre Abu Dhabi,” he says. “We have art fairs, like Art Dubai and Abu Dhabi Art. We have the Sharjah Biennial and The March Meeting. We are receiving a lot of international curators.”

It was impossible to imagine the level of growth, Kazem says, when he was in his early years as an artist, working out of Hassan Sharif’s office in Satwa and mingling with other creatives from the Emirates Fine Arts Society.

“At the time, people were not so accepting of contemporary art. Not just here, but across the Arab region,” he says. Higher education, he says, has been paramount to helping develop the artistic landscape. “We have artists, designers, architects, art historians, writers, we need them all,” he says. “The new generation is doing well. Platforms like the one we have in Venice are giving them great opportunities. To the point where artists can do their work full time. So many great things are happening.”

Art Dubai 2025 is taking place at Madinat Jumeirah from April 18-20, with previews on April 16 and 17