Sama Alshaibi: Silsila Opening Reception 10/5

Sama Alshaibi: Silsila Opening Reception

Join us for the opening reception of Sama Alshaibi: Silsila.

Thursday, October 5th at 4:30 PM MT

In-Person at the Hatton Gallery, Visual Arts Building, 551 W. Pitkin St., CSU Campus, Fort Collins, Colorado

Silsila — Arabic for ‘chain’ or ‘link’— is a multi-media project depicting Alshaibi’s seven-year cyclic journey through the significant deserts and endangered water sources of the Middle East and North African region. Through this body of work, the artist examines connections between different cultures that are under threat of displacement, recognizing shared global issues that need to be addressed. Inspired by the great 14th-century Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta, Alshaibi loosely followed his ancient paths through the present-day Middle East and North Africa to the islands of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, a nation slated to be the first to “disappear” by rising tides, and onto Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, another island on the brink of extinction. Alshaibi establishes that this recognition of geological interconnectedness and human interdependence is essential to addressing environmental issues. According to the artist, the story of water and desert is an enduring paradox and starting point for broader and philosophical readings that place mystical and historical importance on the natural world and point to our uncertain ecological future. 

Included in the exhibition are nine prints and two videos. For Iihya’ – إحياء  (Revival), this will be the premiere US showing.

Copyright @ Sama Alshaibi

Sama Alshaibi's (b. 1973, Iraq) photographs and videos situate her own body as a site of performance, considering the social and gendered impacts of war and migration. Her work complicates the coding of the Arab female figure found in the image history of photographs and moving images. Alshaibi’s sculptural installations evoke the body's disappearance and act as counter-memorials to war and forced exile. Alshaibi’s monograph, Sand Rushes In, was published by Aperture, NYC. It features her 8-year Silsila series (debuted at the 55th Venice Biennale), which probes the human dimensions of borders, migration, and ecological demise.