Moving Mountains by Ahaad Alamoudi
06.10.2024
   Reading 2 min
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Hayy Jameel presents Moving Mountains, the debut institutional solo exhibition by Saudi artist Ahaad Alamoudi that showcases her latest commissioned art piece, along with works from the past eight years. Curated by Rotana Shaker, the show will be open to the public until 26 October 2024.

Employing video, performance, and installation, Alamoudi navigates her ambitions and external forces in an exploration of effort: how it is inspired, embodied, enacted, and eventually overcome. The characters in her videos defy logic and natural elements, moving through shifting landscapes where national symbols become unstable and exist in both digital and physical spaces. These symbols fluctuate between life and death, rootedness in history, and transformation.

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Ahaad Alamoudi, Moving Mountains (installation view). Hayy Jameel, Jeddah, 2024. Courtesy of Hayy Jameel.

The highlight of the exhibition is Moving Mountains, a short film that continues Alamoudi’s examination of fast-evolving social and cultural environments. It situates Saudi Arabia’s natural and urban landscapes as sites where attempts to achieve the impossible are infused with humour, absurdity, and hope.

Other art pieces include, for example, the latest edition of Alamoudi’s ongoing video series, where two talking falcons face away from each other on back-to-back screens, asking, “I don’t remember this being here,” and “Do you see what I see?”. Another work, I Was Told Ice Wouldn’t Melt in Heat, depicts a man in a white thobe who circles a large ice block in the desert for four hours, trying different methods to stop it from melting in the intense heat.

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Ahaad Alamoudi, Moving Mountains, 2024. Commissioned by Art Jameel. Courtesy of the artist.

About the artist

Ahaad Alamoudi (b. 1991, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) is a multidisciplinary artist who grew up between Saudi Arabia and England and now splits her time between Jeddah and London (UK). She earned a BFA in Visual Communication from Dar Al-Hekma University (Jeddah) in 2014 and a Master’s degree in Print from the Royal College of Art (London) in 2017. Alamoudi is also a PhD Candidate (2021-23) at the Royal College of Art.

Alamoudi’s work focuses on the history and representation of Saudi Arabia. Travelling between the two countries, she examines how communities promote heritage through archiving and how different historical narratives weave throughout families and communities. The artist’’s research on Saudi Arabia’s evolving ethnography is often presented through commentary and parody.

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Ahaad Alamoudi, Moving Mountains (installation view). Hayy Jameel, Jeddah, 2024. Courtesy of Hayy Jameel.

Alamoudi has displayed her creations in multiple exhibitions and art events, such as Pygostyle (The Residence Gallery, London, 2022); Art Dubai (2021 and 2018); Heat Burns (solo) (Athr Gallery, Jeddah, 2020); Dubai Design Week, Eastern province of KSA Pavilion, (Dubai, 2019); Young Arab Exhibition, ArtX (New York, USA, 2018); and Rhizome, 55th Venice Biennale (Italy, 2013), among others. The artist has undertaken several residencies, including Residency Unlimited (New York City, 2019), Middle East Now Residency (Florence, Italy, 2018), and 21,39 Refusing to be still (Germany, 2018).

To get more information about Moving Mountains, please visit the show’s official web page.

In addition, you might be interested in exploring General Behaviour by Farah Al Qasimi, one of the five exhibitions at the Cultural Foundation that are available for viewing online.

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