FARAH AL QASIMI

Dearborn

Farah Al Qasimi’s (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 1991) project focuses on the large Arabic community in Dearborn, Michigan (USA), the location of the international headquarters of the Ford Motor Company and one of the main destinations of the Arabic immigration in the United States. The artist moved around the city by day and by night and observed it as a transport and cultural system, she observed the people, their activity, their waiting, their journey to work, and the impact of their activities and reactions on the walls of the city. In her images Dearborn is a hybrid place that represents a mix of Arabic and American manifestations. Al Qasimi creates a kind of amalgam of views onto the real city and onto the city as it is photographed, covered in posters, in other words, views of private and public signs. Finally, she re-stages the photographed worlds like a piece of city wall in the exhibition space, with all its overlapping layers, with all its personal and cultural codes.
She has participated in residencies at the Delfina Foundation, London; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine; and is a recipient of the New York NADA Artadia Prize; Aaron Siskind Individual Photographer’s Fellowship; and this year’s Capricious Photo Award.
Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, UAE; Tate Modern, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; and Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam.

Farah Al Qasimi was born 1991 in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. She lives and works in Dubai and Brooklyn. Working primarily with photography, video, and performance, she examines postcolonial structures of power, gender, and taste in the Gulf Arab states and in the United States. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (USA); Stavanger Art Museum (Norway); Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai; CCS Bard Galleries at the Hessel Museum of Art, New York; The List Visual Arts Center at MIT, Cambridge; Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Tate Modern, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; and Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam.