Magzoid Magazine - Luxury Magazine in the Creative Space | June 2023

Exploring Emirati identity through
photography and Mixed Media: The art
of Ammar Al Attar
“I began by photographing the places in the UAE that were part of my daily life, driving
in my car for hours after my government job ended each afternoon, rolling the driver’s
side window down and shooting with my Leica,” says Ammar
- Exclusive to Magzoid
Ammar Al Attar is a photographer and
mixed media artist. Born in 1981, he
lives in Ajman in the United Arab
Emirates. Completely self-taught, Al
Attar’s practice seeks to not only document
and translate but also methodically research
and examine aspects of Emirati ritual, material
culture, and geographic orientation that are
increasingly illusive in his rapidly globalizing
society.
Al Attar often incorporates retro photographic
equipment into his shoots. He hoards everything
from slide projectors to large format cameras,
dog-eared postcards and orphaned negatives
and meticulously catalogs these clues to the
past on the shelves of his Sharjah studio. His
ongoing research project, Reverse Moments
a collaboration with various long time studio
photographers, collects stories and artifacts
that compose the history of photography in the
UAE, and curates these flashes into a critical
emerging narrative.
Al Attar’s first solo show Prayer Rooms,
brought viewers into Muslim sacred spaces
from impermanent ‘porta-mosques’ on roadsides,
and simple neighborhood mosques,
to sleek shopping mall and office complex
prayer rooms in the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi
Arabia. Sibeel Water, which was shown at Dubai’s
Cuadro Gallery in 2013, investigated both
the industrial and decorative range of public
water fountains positioned outside homes and
government buildings in the UAE as a form
of charitable giving to workers and passerby
compelling viewers to consider the theme of
resource conservation in the desert alongside
Islamic geometric patterns and a hospitality
that is slowly dying out.
With Index 1.0, a series commissioned by
Maraya Art Centre, Al Attar shot large format
portraits of 50 artists, patrons, curators, and
writers who paved the way for the established
contemporary art hub that the UAE has come
to be recognized as over the course of the past
decade. The show marked a shift for Al Attar
from portraits of places to portraits of people
a pattern that continued with Salah, his 2015
solo show at Cuadro Gallery, which immersed
viewers in the movements, meta-movements
and meaning of prayer in Islam through stark
self portraits and the artist’s first performance
piece, in which he filmed himself praying in
the midst of busy intersections and noted how
passerby responded.
“Although I will always value research and
documentation, particularly as it is grounded
in my country’s culture, my work is now moving
beyond borders and neat labels,” says the artist.
Al Attar’s work has been increasingly shown
within the UAE and Gulf, and is held in prestigious
public and private collections including
Sharjah Art Foundation, Barjeel Art Foundation,
and Maraya Art Centre, the forthcoming Zayed
National Museum, and others. He is represented
by Cuadro Gallery in Dubai.
-feature@magzoid.com
www.magzoid.com June 2023
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