A deconstructed window made from wax. Intimate portraits of UAE-based musicians. A child turning fruit into improvised sculptures. These are among the works displayed in Spectrum at Manarat Al Saadiyat.
Presented under the title Becoming Visible: Becoming Image, the exhibition brings together 10 photographers and visual artists who spent four months developing new work through research, mentorship and critical exchange.
Led by photography expert Jassem Rabee Al Awadi, the Photographer-in-Residence Programme encourages artists to treat photography as more than a fixed record. Across the exhibition, images are combined with video, sculpture, textiles and installation.
Chinese artist Yijing Li, known as Bao, says the residency gave her the freedom to test the medium’s limits. “Spectrum is special because it’s dedicated to photography,” she tells The National. “I have been using this opportunity to push the borders of that medium as well.”
Li, who has a master in fine arts from NYU Abu Dhabi, combines references to her home region of Shanxi with imagery from the UAE.
Her installation centres on two panels that she describes as the “deconstruction of a window”. One side evokes a mashrabiya, while wax gives the structure the appearance of melted metal.
The shape also draws on a paper-cutting technique traditionally used for window decorations in the part of China where she grew up.
A tree associated with migration in Shanxi appears alongside a UAE palm, while a video casts moving shadows between the panels. Li explains the tree in Shanxi marks a place where people once gathered before leaving for different destinations, and says the pairing reflects her sense of belonging in two places.
That movement between places is echoed across Spectrum, which brings together Emirati, regional and international artists based in the UAE. The participants include Dhabia AlMansoori, Faisal Al Marzooqi, Ghanem Alameri, Khadija Hamid, Mahra Al Sheryani, Maria Pertseva, Nadia Al Nuaimi, Sultana Alameeri and Viktoryia Vinnikava.
Emirati multidisciplinary artist AlMansoori’s installation, With This Fruit, I Will Build a Kingdom, begins with photographs of her younger brother cutting fruit.
AlMansoori says much of her photography has featured him because they spend a great deal of time together, despite a 15-year age difference.
She initially presented the photographs without a clear narrative. Her mentors found them visually interesting, but asked her to explain why she was making them. The project developed when she invited her brother to choose the fruit himself. She noticed that each time he cut something, he arranged it into shapes.
The final installation resembles children’s building blocks, reinforcing AlMansoori’s belief that learning requires a playful approach.
The photographs were taken at Abu Dhabi’s fruit market in Mina Zayed and at the family home. Before the project, the artist had never visited the market. She eventually went seven times and became familiar with people there.
Working with her brother also made unpredictability part of the process. During one shoot, he pushed a watermelon from the table and broke it on the floor.
AlMansoori says the project became a test of her patience. “Frustration is the whole point,” she says. “We are learning. We are slowly making something together.”
The residency was her first, and she says it changed her understanding of how art is produced.
“You can’t do anything alone,” she says. “It takes a village to do any kind of artwork, let alone put together a full show.”
She also learnt to accept criticism and continue revising her work. “Someone gave you some feedback that you didn’t like. That’s fine. Go with it,” she says. “That’s the biggest thing I learnt.”
Al Marzooqi’s project turns to another kind of discipline: the limitations of analogue photography.
A dentist by profession as well as a musician, Al Marzooqi says his interest in photography began when he found his father’s old film camera during his first year at university.
“I liked the whole clicky-clacky thing. It’s a very tactile experience,” he says.
He sees a link between dentistry and film photography, with both requiring careful work with the hands.
His project focuses on UAE musicians, many of whom he has performed with as part of their bands. Al Marzooqi says he wanted to move beyond the personas musicians often present in public.
“Musicians usually put on a character. It’s a different persona, and I wanted to get to know these people and show these people to the world,” says the artist.
He photographed them while they were performing, writing songs or becoming comfortable in front of the camera.
Al Marzooqi also wants the work to challenge the idea that film photography is disappearing.
“Film is very much alive,” he says. “More people are coming in, more people are experimenting with it.”
The format he uses allows only 12 exposures per roll, while each photograph can cost between $3 and $5. He says those limits make photographers more deliberate.
“You think about every single shot,” he says. “Because of that, I feel like it helps people become better photographers.”
The projects approach photography differently, but each was shaped by revision, experimentation and exchange.
Li says the weekly conversations with mentors and fellow participants were central to that process. “What I have appreciated about this cohort is that everyone is very friendly and tries to help one another,” she says.
She says the atmosphere also reflects her wider experience of working as an artist in the UAE.
“The sense of community is something I really rely on.”
