ArtDayME: ‘Moving Mountains’ Ahaad Alamoudi’s first institutional solo exhibition brings together works from the last eight years, with a new commission, ‘Moving Mountains’, as its centrepiece.

This ambitious new work continues Alamoudi’s expansive exploration of rapidly changing social and cultural environments, situating Saudi’s natural and urban landscapes as sites of possibility –  punctured by effort and powered by fantasy – where both individual and collective attempts to do the seemingly impossible are imbued with humour, absurdity and, at times, hopefulness.

Through video, performance and installation, Alamoudi negotiates her own ambitions and forces beyond her control in an exploration of the ways in which effort is inspired, transmitted, embodied, enacted and ultimately navigated. Thus we watch as the figures in her videos work against reason and the elements as they attempt to prevent ice from melting in the heat, plant a plastic palm tree in the hard earth, or make mountains move.

Amongst these morphing terrains, national symbols are unstable guideposts – animated, acted upon – and made to exist between the digital and the physical planes; between being inanimate, alive, and dead; between rootedness in history and meaning and transmutation.

Ahaad Alamoudi is a Saudi artist whose work addresses history, ethnography and representation. Her practice stems from alternating standpoints of embeddedness and exteriority, using photography, video and print installations to play with cliches, visual tropes and traditional perceptions, often in a humorous way to reinterpret historical renditions of reforming culture. Alamoudi graduated from Dar Al Hekma University with a Bachelor in Visual Communication and holds a Master in Print from the Royal College of Art. She is currently pursuing a PhD and based between Jeddah and London.

The exhibition is curated by Rotana Shaker and runs until October 26 at Hayy Jameel.

All photos courtesy of ATHR Gallery