Monira Al Qadiri

Born 1983 in Dakar, Senegal
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

White Bay Power Station

Crude Eye, 2022
single channel video, 10 mins
Commissioned by the Blaffer Art Museum and the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston
Courtesy the artist

Growing up close by an immense oil refinery in Kuwait, the young Monira Al Qadiri would imagine the facility she passed daily was a fantastical metropolis, alive with light and phantoms that called its steel spires home.

In Crude Eye, the artist makes this childhood daydream a reality. Floating through a miniature reconstruction of the refinery, the panorama appears both mystical and unsettling. Accompanied by a soundscape espousing the divine power of oil, it is unclear where wonder ends and irony begins. This ambiguity reflects the strained relationship between the awe-inspiring scale and the crushing environmental implications of the region’s ‘petro-culture’. Like how ancient civilisations might have worshipped gods of war or famine, Al Qadiri confronts the faith we continue naively to place in that which will destroy us.

Monira Al Qadiri is a Kuwaiti visual artist born in Senegal and educated in Japan. Spanning sculpture, installation, film and performance, Al Qadiri’s multifaceted practice is mainly based on research into the cultural histories of the Gulf region. Her interpretation of the Gulf’s so-called ‘petro-culture’ is manifested through speculative scenarios that take inspiration from science fiction, autobiography, traditional practices and pop culture, resulting in uncanny and covertly subversive works. She is currently based in Berlin.

Read more about the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, by purchasing the catalogue here.