3. Cover Interview: Shaikha Al Ketbi on Darawan

Interview by Sophie Mayuko Arni

^{Published on January 29, 2024}

The success of Manar Abu Dhabi is undeniable. Simply measure the number of visitors lining up to visit the five different hubs of Abu Dhabi’s inaugural light art exhibition: thousands per night, ready to be enchanted by new experiences of public art, technological prowess, and scale. Not to mention the intrigue of visiting hidden enclaves of the UAE’s capital.

For our cover interview, I had the chance to exchange thoughts with Shaikha Al Ketbi. Together with Rawdha Al Ketbi and Ayesha Hadhir, the three Al Ain natives established an art collective in 2019, and have since exhibited widely in the UAE and internationally. Their Darawan installation, commissioned for Manar Abu Dhabi, is made of three large-scale sculptures placed poetically throughout the city’s Eastern Mangroves – a magical location, fit for a magic-inducing work. It’s safe to say the photorealistic render of Darawan’s carousel has attained some kind of iconic status, featured since November in all Manar Abu Dhabi branding and advertisements from Marina Mall to Saadiyat Island.

Darawan features a staircase, a carousel, and a sculpture of three women: three striking symbols, made on a monumental scale with LED lights that resemble street light decorations of Abu Dhabi. Made to respond to the environment, Darawan succeeds in being highly site-specific, while also adding a sense of wonder and whimsical nostalgia to the Eastern Mangroves. True to the artists’ intentions, the three sculptures give space for the inner child to dream and wonder – an idea, a sketch, a render coming alive.

Darawan can’t help but leave some magic behind. As you will read in the following interview, the three sculptures also feed into larger existential questions about womanhood, cycles of life, and the afterlife.

1. Ayesha Hadhir, Rawdha Al Ketbi, Shaikha Al Ketbi, Darawan, Manar Abu Dhabi 2023. Courtesy the artists and DCT Abu Dhabi. Photo by Colin Robertson.

Darawan: Behind-the-Scenes

Sophie Mayuko Arni: Darawan, your work for the inaugural edition of Manar Abu Dhabi has been a huge success. I see the installation shots projected on screens and printed all over Abu Dhabi, and Dubai too. Huge congratulations!

Let’s start with your working process for this massive outdoor installation in the Eastern Mangroves. When and how did you first start working on conceptualizing Darawan?

Shaikha Al Ketbi: We were approached by Manar Abu Dhabi earlier in 2023, in the first half of the year. Really, we’ve always been instinctively drawn to these three specific forms.

First, we have the carousel. I’ve always wanted to replicate a carousel in Al Ain, found in Hili Fun City, a place I grew up in, and a place Rawdha and Ayesha frequented throughout their lives. That carousel looks like a foreign object to the UAE, but the paintings on the decorations were all hand-painted scenes from daily life in the Emirates. One is a dalla, with little cups next to it, another scene is a dhow in the water, and another scene is a fort in Al Ain. It creates this quirky combination of scenes that are very UAE-centric, and then a carousel, an object that is associated with places throughout the world.

It creates this quirky combination of scenes that are very UAE-centric, and then a carousel, an object that is associated with places throughout the world.

The carousel was an idea we always had, and we were thinking of how to combine different elements existing within our bodies of work to create an image that defines the three of us.

We had other smaller projects that revolved around the carousel. We have a jewelry piece that represents this carousel actually, created by Ayesha, and I’ve been drawing it since at least 2017 and also created a video work around the actual carousel in Al Ain for an exhibition in Diriyah in 2019. It’s a big dream of ours to realize that specific sculpture at this scale.

For the other sculpture of the three women – we created a version of this for a previous artwork, also commissioned by DCT, in Jebel Hafeet. We wanted to reintroduce those sculptures in a new way for Manar, and make them more monumental, larger, made out of brass sheets – we just wanted to revisit that concept and continue that conversation.

The stairs have appeared in a previous project, called Ayyn in Jebel Hafeet – the stairs have been appearing multiple times in my own practice – especially as vehicles for performance. We wanted to create something that was truly monumental, that truly felt like it was completely out of place, in the middle of the water. We wanted to inspire people to think about cycles of life and the afterlife.

When we think about this as women, life before birth already encompasses our life here on earth. Each female fetus already has all the eggs she would have in her lifetime, so life already exists in her body while she is in the mother’s womb. You know your daughters and sons on a biological level before you are even born. We were thinking about that, and then the trials and tribulations of actual life, post-birth, pre-death, and post-death. What is the afterlife?

The staircase has two entrances: there is an entry point at the bottom of the stairs and a big gate at the top. We are thinking about the cycle of entry and exit: the entry and exit to life, as we are walking upwards or downwards, and how the water reflection, when viewed with all these lenses, plays into that.

2. Ayesha Hadhir, Rawdha Al Ketbi, Shaikha Al Ketbi, Staircase, Darawan, Manar Abu Dhabi 2023. Image courtesy the artists.

We are thinking about the entry and exit to life, as we are walking upwards or downwards, and how the water reflection, when viewed with all these lenses, plays into that.

Through my trip to see the artwork, I’ve seen that the water reflections make up a whole other dance on their own. The reflections are performative and all-encompassing, they are just so beautiful and add so much to the work. That’s one important aspect.

S.M.A.: Tell us about the Eastern Mangroves location. Were you assigned this location, or did you pick it yourselves? For readers who aren’t too familiar with mangroves in Abu Dhabi, could you describe it in a few words?

S.K.: There were multiple locations when we were approached for the project, but we knew we wanted to go for the Eastern Mangroves, and we knew we wanted to unravel this natural journey with our three sculptures. Basically, we wanted someone to start the journey and make their own connections, so all three sculptures have their own breathing space. Each sculpture is not directly visible from one to the next, you have to be on the boat to experience all three, as part of a journey.

Each sculpture is not directly visible from one to the next, you have to be on the boat to experience all three, as part of a journey.

The mangroves line the Eastern side of Abu Dhabi Island with the entire coast. Mangroves make up these lush green forests, of salt-water mangrove plants. The mangrove itself has been an important part of Abu Dhabi’s ecosystem and has been celebrated before – especially in the 49th UAE National Day celebration which I worked on. Mangroves are responsible for a huge amount of carbon capture. They also have been manually planted as part of a large undertaking project by the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan – he started planting mangroves in Abu Dhabi and made sure that the project continued throughout multiple decades, and we know that mangroves continue to be planted until now.

For us, in the UAE, the mangroves act as a rainforest. In parallel to capturing carbon, and releasing oxygen, they also are very important to regulate the weather.

Abu Dhabi is a collection of hundreds of islands, so it was a historical decision to intentionally plant mangroves around them. We’ve seen how much they’ve been highlighted and talked about in COP 28 for example.

If we were to describe the installation to someone who hasn’t been before, you would be on a boat or on a kayak. You enter into a large pathway made of water, and you see luscious green mangroves on each side, left and right. You feel this pathway will continue forever. Then you see the sculptures – two of them are out in the open area, and one of them is hidden, in of the canals of the mangrove forest. That’s the carousel, and it requires a longer track, and it requires the tide to be at a specific level.

S.M.A.: Installation-wise, this is a huge undertaking – I can only imagine the number of engineers, CAD designers, architects, and fabricators involved in making these pieces a reality. Is it your first time working on such a large scale? Can you give us some glimpses into the process of making Darawan? I’m sure there were moments when you thought it would be impossible to achieve but persevered through it.

S.K.: First of all, it started with a sketch that I drew – with Rawdha in the room of course, and Ayesha is a step ahead by generating images from our old works using Midjourney. We knew that we wanted to do three different sculptures: a set of stairs, another sculpture celebrating women, and the carousel.

The process started with conceptualization and sketching. Then it went to a group of renderers, who ended up creating almost exactly what we see now in real life. All the images that the renderers have created ended up going to the visual campaign of Manar the project, and they got really close to the real-life sculptures. There is that part of the process: from the sketches to the renders to real life.

Moving on to suppliers, we worked with different fabricators for the metal works and the LED lights. The LED lights supplier is someone who has a very big role in Abu Dhabi every year, as he’s the main supplier for the light displays for Ramadan, Eid, and the different light decorations that we see in Abu Dhabi – on the Corniche, over the bridges. Throughout the year, all the lights we see on the roads are created by the same company, called Nubani Electrical. We worked directly with Naeem Nubani, who has been working with the company for many, many years. He conceptualizes the designs we see around town, and oversees their installation in Abu Dhabi, in the Western Region, and Al Ain. He does a lot of that work for the Abu Dhabi municipality.

We’ve been working with him on different projects in the past. When we got the call for Manar, he was the perfect person to work with. For us, the aesthetic of the project already fits with the visual language of Abu Dhabi. We all feel that those LED lights that we see throughout the year are such a prominent part of the visual language of the city. Those lights and their different designs are part of our landscape growing up over the past couple of decades.

The aesthetic of the project already fits with the visual language of Abu Dhabi. We all feel that those LED lights that we see throughout the year are such a prominent part of the visual language of the city.

So he was the perfect person to work with in terms of the fabrication and as a supplier. We had to work around some solutions, relating to sourcing some of the materials, and making sure they follow the sketch and render we had.

The other part is the installation, with sculptures safely placed in the water. We were thinking of having the ladies' sculptures placed on buoys, so they would be shaking/rolling around in the water, so they have more motion in the water. There were technical difficulties with that, so for the sculptures – they are each standing on platforms that allow for heavy weights to be correctly balanced on top of them and allow space for solar power panels to exist within their vicinity. We use solar energy to light the sculptures up at night.

S.M.A.: I’m wondering about your collaborative process, as artists who have their own individual practice and also work together. The carousel, the staircase, and the intergenerational grandmother, mother, and daughter; are all reflective of Ayesha’s, and Rawdha’s and your practice weaved together. Any advice for other collectives or artists who want to make work as a group?

S.K.: Working as a group is not an easy undertaking. It helps that we had a similar upbringing, and lives similar lives as we grew up in Abu Dhabi, and also went to the same university, in the same Zayed University Visual Arts program. To some extent, we were primed to work together. Of course, Abu Dhabi 2019 Beyond Emerging Artist curated by Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian, they were the ones who convinced us to officially collaborate.

We learned so much from them. Mainly, being open to each other. Lowering down the walls. A lot of artists tend to be extremely protective as they build out their practice, they become protective of their motifs, and they become protective of things that they claim as their own. But we’ve seen the magic that happens when you become less protective and more open, and you reach out to the other person.

My strength, for example, is drawing on paper, and imagining things to be read. Once those drawings go into the hands of Rawdha and Ayesha, they create beautiful objects with them: jewelry, clothing, sculptures, huge sculptures, installations. They think in 3D.

Collaborating is always super rewarding, each of us really respects each others’ practice, and each of us is genuinely a huge fan of each other’s practice. Once we open up our practice to each other, and we can borrow things from each other, we treat those things with a lot of respect, and a lot of care. Even if we shuffle those motifs, those works still feel like the output of a group, and we are super proud to present them both as a group and as individuals.

A lot of our work just emerges out of our conversations – life conversations, not just about art. We realize there are patterns that we want to talk about, motifs that emerge, within our work.

My main advice for collectives: be open, be generous, be a big fan of your collaborators, and have fun with your work.

3. Ayesha Hadhir, Rawdha Al Ketbi, Shaikha Al Ketbi at Abu Dhabi Art, Beyond: Emerging, 2019. Image courtesy of the artists.

My main advice for collectives: be open, be generous, be a big fan of your collaborators, and have fun with your work.

Darawan: Concept

S.M.A.: On Darawan’s three sculptures: one is Carousel, the other Staircase, and finally Intergenerational Women, which shows three women, who may all be 33 years old. All three sculptures weave your three practices. What does the number three mean to you?

S.K.: I thought about this question a lot actually. I don’t know if it’s early in our art education – throughout photography, and painting – that we learned that the rule of thirds, creates the most balanced composition. I want to extrapolate that idea into working as a trio. Working as a collective.

If the diagram is a triangle, there are two bases of the triangle, which are almost on the ground. And one base is higher up, creating some sort of a hierarchy. We realize a lot of times when working as a group, we don’t need all three hands on deck. We need at least two hands on deck, and the third person can take care of all other responsibilities relating to life, work, and family. So I just wanted to bring this specific thing back to balance.

Sometimes working as a trio will require two of us at a time to take the load, and the third person has more freedom to do other things.

Conceptually, there is an innate, gut feeling, significance of the number three for us. The three artworks are like three focal points. They are how we interpreted the rules of thirds within the mangrove location.

S.M.A.: The metaphors you chose to symbolize family, loss, dream, whimsical imagination, and childhood, are all quite personal, yet feel universal too. Can you expand on the meaning of Darawan (spinning cycles, or rotation)?

S.K.: Darawan comes from the concept of Da-era (circle in Arabic). Darawan means the act of spinning in a circle. We looked at that from the perspective of the spinning carousel – from different cycles, the carousel represents a lot of our dreams. The act of sleeping and dreaming. Subconscious and conscious. Cycles of sleep and wake. Cycles that we have in the night. The dreams that we have; all of us are active dreamers. We see a lot of visions in our dreams that we end up creating as artworks. That was specifically the case for the carousel. We wanted it to feel like waking up from a dream, waking up from a hazy memory. This cycle of wake and sleep –and deep sleep. This is what we talked about in terms of conceptualizing that artwork.

Looking at the stairs, it’s much more about the circle between life and death, pre-birth, and the afterlife. All three of these concepts are represented within circles. That’s why we came up with the word Darawan, rotating, continuously, on a micro and macro level.

We looked at that from the perspective of the spinning carousel – from different cycles, the carousel represents a lot of our dreams.

4. Ayesha Hadhir, Rawdha Al Ketbi, Shaikha Al Ketbi, Darawan, Manar Abu Dhabi 2023. Courtesy the artists and DCT Abu Dhabi. Photo by Lance Gerber.

Public Art Movement: Is Bigger, Better?

S.M.A.: We can’t deny it: we are living in a public art renaissance. Abu Dhabi is experiencing a massive new shift towards public art with the success of Manar Abu Dhabi and the upcoming biennale as part of Public Art Abu Dhabi, opening next year. What are your thoughts on public art, especially in your home Emirate of Abu Dhabi?

S.K.: It’s the natural next step. It’s been a long time coming. We’ve all been excited. I think the public is ready for art of this scale actually, and has been ready for a long time.

There are monuments in Abu Dhabi, which could be considered on the peripheries of public art. Some of them are still standing now, and some of them have been demolished over the past few decades. Namely, the volcano fountain — you know it was such an interesting monument, I don’t know if we can consider it public art. And now with the huge sculptures of the mubkhar and cannon in downtown Abu Dhabi. Those are super important.

There has been an appetite for public art for a while, I think. There have been attempts to bring art to the public, whether it’s through developers who have been commissioning artworks on a smaller scale in their specific communities, or through municipalities. There have been public artworks placed in Abu Dhabi throughout the decades, we have large artworks but on smaller-scale projects. I think Manar Abu Dhabi was the first attempt at bringing an entire public art exhibition throughout the city.

Especially on Lulu Island, there were a number of interactive artworks that I really enjoyed looking at how the public was interacting with the works. Many times, these were the first time that the audience was interacting with public art. It’s been heartwarming to see how many people are filling up the boats to go to Lulu Island, and how they are interacting with the works. People of all ages, elderly, and children. I’ve been lucky to witness it, and I’m glad I went back home to do that.

I think the public is ready for art of this scale actually, and has been ready for a long time.

S.M.A.: Is bigger always better? How would you feel going back to exhibiting in a white cube, in a traditional art gallery setting?

S.K.: All three of us will be more than comfortable exhibiting in the white cube. We really enjoy large-scale works, we have been working in large scale for a while now. There are many works in parallel to these large-scale projects that are smaller scale, including sketches, furniture pieces, fabric and textile-based works with Ayesha, found object-based works with Rawdha. There is always space and room to go back to the gallery, to the art fair, to the museum.

S.M.A.: After the experience of exhibiting at Manar, do you think the current model of art education – MFAs, studio visits/critiques, residencies, focus on theory – prepares you to do work at this scale? What is missing in the current education ecosystem? I think this is important to answer as contemporary art (in the region and globally) will become synonymous with massive and technologically advanced installations, and artists will increasingly be asked to have the technological know-how to awe audiences with scale.

S.K.: Teaching specific skills relating to fabricating large-scale artworks might not be suited to an art education program such as an MFA, but I do see a world for it. I can imagine a series of workshops with preselected artists within these larger projects such as Manar Abu Dhabi. Once artists are reached out to, they might be offered a specific public art-related course or a fabrication-related course as they start to conceptualize their works. That would allow artists to feel more equipped with thinking on a larger scale, in experimenting in 3D context.

I don’t know yet if there is a readiness or willingness within educational institutions to teach public art yet, because I would assume MFA programs are largely influenced by what the class of faculty can offer. For example, some performance artists get rejected by MFA because there isn’t a faculty member specializing in performance art within that school. The same is applicable to large-scale public art, or fabricating in that scale. I don’t think schools are yet equipped for that, I think special courses or workshops would be better suited for this.

Dawaran (2023) was commissioned by Manar Abu Dhabi 2023 – DCT Abu Dhabi.

Ayesha Hadhir selects chairs, tables, and sofas – some antiques, others with personal memories – that she integrates into her installations to give the audience insight into an Emirati domestic setting. The definition of community for Ayesha is not only limited to modern times: she has an inherited sense of how community was like in the past, especially in relation to the rituals of womanhood. Images of women carrying objects over their heads, filling up containers with water from the falaj, never leave her mind.

Rawdha Al Ketbi seeks out abandoned spaces, which she considers to be archeological sites. She investigates the architectures of the abandoned objects found at these sites, making these objects travel forward in time as Rawdha paints them with acid and other chemicals – this painting ceremony itself serving as the time machine. It is as if through her clairvoyance Rawdha is preparing a runway for the future extra-terrestrial life to descend upon, distorting both time and space in her newest works for this site.

Shaikha Al Ketbi maps out her hometown Al-Ain through objects and places from her memories. She maps her environment, and herself, through rigorous research, driving to known as well as unknown sites, exploring familiar and unfamiliar territories and the objects inhabiting them as if monuments to the private and public, ancient, and modern, built and unfinished. She believes that all monuments- whether they are in our minds or in the physical realm- are equally important. “Our collective artworks, when looked at from the future, in the desert of Al Ain, are equally as important as the tombs, dating back to 3000 BC, that are quite literally a stone-throw away from them in proximity.”
Text courtesy of Manar Abu Dhabi.

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3. Cover Interview: Shaikha Al Ketbi on Darawan

Darawan: Behind-the-Scenes

It creates this quirky combination of scenes that are very UAE-centric, and then a carousel, an object that is associated with places throughout the world.

We are thinking about the entry and exit to life, as we are walking upwards or downwards, and how the water reflection, when viewed with all these lenses, plays into that.

Each sculpture is not directly visible from one to the next, you have to be on the boat to experience all three, as part of a journey.

The aesthetic of the project already fits with the visual language of Abu Dhabi. We all feel that those LED lights that we see throughout the year are such a prominent part of the visual language of the city.

My main advice for collectives: be open, be generous, be a big fan of your collaborators, and have fun with your work.

Darawan: Concept

We looked at that from the perspective of the spinning carousel – from different cycles, the carousel represents a lot of our dreams.

Public Art Movement: Is Bigger, Better?

I think the public is ready for art of this scale actually, and has been ready for a long time.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 08 –– SELSummer/Fall 2024

E-08++ Summer/Fall 2024

About ––

Interviews ––

Open Call ––

Newsletter ––

Chronological Archive ––

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB Summer 2020

E-01++ Fall/Winter 2020-21

🎙️GAD Talk Series –– Season 1 2020

E-Issue 02 –– NYC Spring 2021

E-02++ Spring/Summer 2021

E-Issue 03 ––TYO Fall 2021

E-03++ Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 04 –– IST Spring 2022

E-04++ Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 05 –– VCE Fall 2022

E-05++ Fall/Winter 2022-23

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJSpring 2023

E-Issue 07 –– AUHWinter 2023-24

E-07++ Winter/Spring 2024

🔍 Legal

3. Cover Interview: Shaikha Al Ketbi on Darawan

Darawan: Behind-the-Scenes

It creates this quirky combination of scenes that are very UAE-centric, and then a carousel, an object that is associated with places throughout the world.

We are thinking about the entry and exit to life, as we are walking upwards or downwards, and how the water reflection, when viewed with all these lenses, plays into that.

Each sculpture is not directly visible from one to the next, you have to be on the boat to experience all three, as part of a journey.

The aesthetic of the project already fits with the visual language of Abu Dhabi. We all feel that those LED lights that we see throughout the year are such a prominent part of the visual language of the city.

My main advice for collectives: be open, be generous, be a big fan of your collaborators, and have fun with your work.

Darawan: Concept

We looked at that from the perspective of the spinning carousel – from different cycles, the carousel represents a lot of our dreams.

Public Art Movement: Is Bigger, Better?

I think the public is ready for art of this scale actually, and has been ready for a long time.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 08 –– SEL
Summer/Fall 2024

E-08++
Summer/Fall 2024

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB
Summer 2020

E-01++
Fall/Winter 2020-21

E-Issue 02 –– NYC
Spring 2021

E-02++
Spring/Summer 2021

E-Issue 03 ––TYO
Fall 2021

E-03++
Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 04 –– IST
Spring 2022

E-04++
Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 05 –– VCE
Fall 2022

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Fall/Winter 2022-23

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJ
Spring 2023

E-Issue 07 –– AUH
Winter 2023-24

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Winter/Spring 2024