Oil transports us, warms us and dresses us – to destruction: Monira Al Qadiri’s Kiasma exhibition revolves around the question of our common destiny
Monira Al Qadiri’s art deals with what it feels like to live a modern life made possible by oil during the accelerating climate crisis. The starting point for her new exhibition is the way that this raw material formed over millions of years has been almost surreptitiously interwoven into human history and destiny. The subject is personal for her: Al Qadiri grew up next door to oil refineries in Kuwait and experienced the Gulf War as a child. Deep Fate is her first solo exhibition in the Nordic countries. It opens at Kiasma on Friday.
Installation view of Monira Al Qadiri’s exhibition Deep Fate in Kiasma. FInnish National Gallery / Petri Virtanen.
Oil is everywhere in our everyday lives – in fuels, clothes, toys, make-up, buildings and roads. We use it to heat homes and the climate. Wars have been fought over it.
Oil’s dual role in generating wealth and causing crises is a central theme in the new exhibition by artist Monira Al Qadiri (b. 1983). The title, Deep Fate, refers to the origins of oil deep in the earth and also to the way that dependence on oil and breaking that dependence are a matter of life and death for humankind.
Al Qadiri’s working process is based on research on the cultural history of the Persian Gulf region. The exhibition features sculptures and video works from the last decade. Some of them are very large, while the smallest are only a centimetre in diameter. Various sculptures echo the shapes of the blades and the molecular structures of the chemicals used in oil drilling. Al Qadiri’s works are characterised by iridescent rainbow colours that are reminiscent of oil and the shimmering surface of pearls.
In her video works, the artist often returns to her childhood experiences. For the child living close to an oil refinery, the industrial structure evoked thoughts of a glowing metropolis rather than of environmental destruction. Meanwhile, burning oil fields were her first conscious encounter with oil.
Al Qadiri’s works also contain references to the history of her family. Before the oil boom, one important source of livelihood in the region was pearl diving, in which her grandfather worked. In the 1950s, the oil industry lifted the small country of Kuwait out of poverty and into prosperity, and in so doing brought an end to the pearl-diving industry.
«The formation of oil has set a ‚fate‘ deeply intertwined with human history and the exploitation of natural resources,» Al Qadiri says of the idea behind her new exhibition.
«Just as the processes of deep time remain unseen but have clearly shaped our environment, the actions of the deep state remain obscured while shaping political and social realities, creating a narrative of extraction, exploitation, and the resulting crises – climatic, political, and social.»
The exhibition is curated by Kiasma’s curators Piia Oksanen and Jari-Pekka Vanhala.
Artist’s biography
Monira Al Qadiri (b. 1983, Dakar, Senegal) is a Kuwaiti artist educated in Japan. She currently lives and works in Berlin.
Her solo exhibitions include «The Archaeology of Beasts» (Bozar Brussels, 2024); «Benzene Float» (Halle Verriere, 2024); «Haunted Water» (UCCA Dune, 2023), «Mutant Passages» (Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2023); «Holy Quarter» (Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, 2022); «Refined Vision» (Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, 2022); «Holy Quarter» (Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2020); «Empire Dye» (Kunstverein Göttingen, 2019); «The Craft» (Gasworks, London, 2017); «Attempts to Read the World Differently» (Stroom Den Haag, the Hague, 2017); «Muhawwil» (Sultan Gallery, Kuwait, 2014).
Select group exhibitions include Desert X Al Ula (Al Ula, 2024); 24th Biennial of Sydney (Sydney, 2023–24); 8th Boras Biennial (Sweden, 2024); Sharjah Biennial 15 (Sharjah, 2023); 15th Triennial of Small Sculpture, Fellbach (2022); Asia Art Biennial, Taiwan (2021); Dubai Expo 2020 (2021); «Our World is Burning» (Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2020); «Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars» (MoMA PS1, New York, 2019–20); Asia Pacific Triennial (Brisbane, 2018); Lulea Biennial (Sweden, 2018); Athens Biennial (Athens, 2018). In 2022, Al Qadiri was featured in the Venice Biennale’s central exhibition «The Milk of Dreams.»
