DUBAI: One of Saudi Arabia’s most thought-provoking artists, Manal Al-Dowayan has spent the past 15 years highlighting the status of women in her country. Now she is back with her first solo show in three years.
The multidisciplinary artist’s first exhibition since completing her second master’s degree at London’s Royal College of Art, “Watch Before You Fall,” is a response to the symbolism found in books about the female body. It is also her first solo show to be inaugurated outside of the Middle East. It opens at the Sabrina Amrani Gallery in Madrid.
“It was a challenge for me,” admits Al-Dowayan, whose work partly deals with the idea of collective memory. “Because I wanted to see how — once you throw away the context —people will engage with these ideas.”
Like much of her previous work, “Watch Before you Fall” examines the representation of Saudi women. In this instance, that means old and new instructional texts that tell a woman how she should behave in a marriage.
“There are volumes and volumes of these books that exist out there, written by men about women,” says Al-Dowayan, who was born in Dhahran and lives in Dubai. “I look at, not the content, but simply the imagery on these covers. Women are usually represented as a singular flower that’s wilting, that’s very delicate, that’s passive, and there are a lot of images of curtains and veils and mashrabiyas.
“These books exist in the West too. You know, how you should never leave the house without lipstick, how a true lady needs to be dressed beautifully and smell beautiful when her husband comes home. I question books that are produced in that context. I don’t know if they are well read, but they exist.”
Using soft sculpture, ceramics and fabric, Al-Dowayan has created a show that seeks to “alter perceptions and correct memory,” with a series of healing totems central to the exhibition. The idea is to trigger conversations around “symbolism and feminism in the context of religion, politics and media.” It also forms part of a new focus in Al-Dowayan’s work — the exploration of the public and counterpublic spheres in Saudi Arabia.
“It’s a space where I want to heal, and the idea is that in this transition from the counterpublic — where there was a whole power structure and there was comfort being around only women — we are now being pushed into the public sphere and it’s hard for some of us to adjust,” she says. “I’m from the generation that is ingrained in the old way and it’s hard for me to transition to the new. People envision that when you say segregated areas for women that these women are very weak and oppressed, but in reality there’s a lot of power and there’s a lot of freedom. Your voice is heard and you’re less conscious about your body.”
When we meet, Al-Dowayan is at the Nobel Exhibition in Dubai, where she has two commissioned artworks on display, but that’s only scratching the surface when it comes to current interest in her work. She is participating in “Your Voice Matters” at the Arnhem Museum in the Netherlands until May 12 and is part of “Crude” at the Jameel Arts Center in Dubai until March 30. She is also giving lectures in both Rotterdam and Arnhem.
“I’ve been working so hard for the past six months that I’m looking forward to a very quiet summer,” she says with a smile. “I’m exhausted and I still have a lot of travel to do.”
Most of Al-Dowayan’s art is an interpretation of her own personal journey or a reaction to a particular moment in time. The work included in “Crude,” for example, was originally a response to her father’s passing.
It is the Saudi female experience, however, with which Al-Dowayan is primarily concerned. “Suspended Together,” for example, featured 200 fiberglass doves stamped with the permission-to-travel documents that Saudi women require to travel, while “Esmi” was a response to the custom of Saudi men not mentioning the names of the women in their lives.
“I’m not a person that has a message that I want to convey,” insists Al-Dowayan, who became a full-time artist after she quit her job at Saudi Aramco 13 years ago. “This is not the way that I make my work. I just produce something that is an observation of a time and a space. I’m an artist that wants to make art. I want to express myself. And my personal experience resonates more with the experience of women, with an audience that’s more feminine, or with men who understand the feminist cause. I find carrying a message in your work becomes something that’s outside of your inside space. I’m having a conversation in my work, and if this conversation catches, then that’s how it’s supposed to be.”
During our conversation Al-Dowayan discusses everything from the pervasive sense of the ‘other’ to the influence of newspapers’ use of imagery in forming the “collective idea of what a woman is, or what she looks like, or how she should behave.” In reality there’s a gap, she says. “I address that gap and what positive things and what negatives things it can cause.” She is, however, aware of the limitations of art.
“I don’t believe art changes anything,” she says. “Let’s not pump up the ego. Let’s all be realistic. I think art is a space where you can activate the mind and you can ask questions and you can give me an answer as a viewer. That’s it. And that engagement is the space of change.”
Is she happy with the rate of change for women in Saudi Arabia?
“I really like the journey that we are on and I hate judging things through the Western canon, because it’s completely different,” she says. “They’re still working out their issues with feminism and women’s participation. Things are not perfect anywhere. Everybody has their own journey. Our journey here is different but it is a journey and we have to acknowledge it as it is.”
