Stone Slippers (2013) draws inspiration from a quotidian artefact of daily use within the Gulf: the traditional sandal. Departing from a local anecdote in which small island communities historically reclaimed land by throwing worn slippers or sandals into the sea and hoping that sand would gather around them to constitute an island, Al Saadi’s worktakes on this daily object and recasts it in stone.
Set against the backdrop of Emirati hyper-modernisation and the perpetual transformation of the desert, Stone Slippers suggests a re-rooting of the body as a methodology for maintaining a bond with historic nomadic modes of relating to one’s native land.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Abdullah Al Saadi (b. 1967, Khor Fakkan) is an Emirati artist who lives and works in Khor Fakkan. His work ranges from painting, drawing and the creation of artist’s notebooks to the collection and systematic categorisation of found objects and invention of new alphabets. A great affinity with nature and rural life informs his practice, which explores local environments as well as intersections of personal and cultural history. His solo exhibition, Abdullah Al Saadi: Sites of Memory, Sites of Amnesia, took place at the National Pavilion UAE at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024). Other group and solo exhibitions include the 12th and 13th editions of the Sharjah Biennial (2015, 2017); the 54th and 56th Venice Biennales (2011, 2015); Here and Elsewhere, New Museum, New York (2014); Languages of the Desert, Kunstmuseum Bonn (2005); the 26th São Paulo Biennial (2004).
EXHIBITED WORKS
Abdullah Al Saadi (b. 1967)
Stone Slippers, 2023
Variable materials
Variable dimensions
Courtesy of the artist and Sharjah Art Foundation
