Al-Ashirah
A story of a tribe that could tell no stories
Homo sapiens can organize in groups as large as 150 members. This 150 number, known as Dunbar’s number, is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain and share intimate and personal narrative bonds. Beyond this ‘limit’ of 150 we enter into a state of tribal storytelling where we do not recognize the individuals within our tribe but we identify with the stories that unite or separate us.
These narratives become our laws, systems and values that we congregate around.
In our not so distant future, narrative becomes classified as a disease of the mind, as truth is co-opted by lies masquerading as fact, civilizations begin to fail as we break off into smaller and smaller warring tribes. In a final attempt to save our species from its own narratives, a tribe of humans are sent to inhabit a distant planet. Each member of the tribe is encased within a new skin of technology long before they are born, a skin made to censor any stories the tribe members may one day tell. But over time, one after the next, a helmet is removed as the story spreads to all the members of this marooned tribe.
One day, the head of the tribe, Al آل travels back through the stars carrying with him the story of his forgotten tribe.
The entire exhibition comprises of 4 separate installations, 298 individual polymer clay sculptures, animated film, sound, ink on cotton fabric.
Ashirah; meaning tribe, Is derived from the number ten in Arabic, ‘Ashrah’: for that reason a group of ten or more people that believe in the same story are considered a tribe.
This installation shows the storyline flowing from one member of the tribe to the next, each story being told then retold, shared within a collective space until the story is heard by all the members of the tribe, a common pool flipping from white to black and back to white again as new stories are told. A cycle of truths and lies, facts and fictions, doctrines being accepted and then rejected to start a new.
Al-Ashirah, 2018, Mixed media installation (200 polymer clay sculptures + video projection & musical composition).
The ‘heads of the tribe’ series, 2018, Polymer clay sculpture, fabric or paper with thread stitchings.
The Book of Ãl, 2018, Ink illustrations on stitched and stained hemp fabric + polymer clay sculptures, 550 x 140 cm
Part of the exhibition, the clocks are striking thirteen, curated by Maya Elkhalil, Athr gallery, Jeddah 2018.
Video productio: Artur Weber.
Musical collaboration with Ali
Alattas and Hani Kadour