Artist Farah Al Qasimi’s works on show at C/O Berlin, Germany
- 15 Aug 2023
Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer
C/O Berlin, the private exhibition space for photography and visual media located in Berlin, Germany, is currently presenting the show Farah Al Qasimi. Poltergeist (May 13 – Sept. 7). Among other things, the exhibition has a close-up of a red-pink couch, in various patterns. In the centre of the picture is a depression, as if someone had just sat there or pressed their hand into it. It is a play between presence and absence that gives off an uncanny - and equally playful - aura. Is it a banal everyday scene or an attempt at contact from beyond? Is it a message from “the undiscovered country from whose bourn/No traveller returns?”
How do you photograph something that is intangible? Farah Al Qasimi (b. 1991, UAE) is a multidisciplinary artist whose present exhibition comprises photographic and video work. Influenced by the domestically-set horror films of the 1970s and 80s, she tracks the traces of a poltergeist who creates horrifying mischief inside homes. Objects move around of their own volition, spaces feel saturated with psychic energy, and the safety of one’s private space is challenged by the wilful tyranny of the objects it contains. With humour and a light touch, the artist, who is here a visual storyteller, holds the seen and unseen worlds in balance. She also deals with the polarities of documentation and fiction, metaphor and the banal. Al Qasimi moves through private spaces with her camera, documenting everyday situations and objects in interiors and pristine bathrooms, always displaying her specific aesthetic and her unmistakable eye for cultural details.
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In doing so, she strips her images of place-specific details – the photographs themselves are taken in a broad spectrum of locations, ranging from Abu Dhabi, UAE, to Detroit, Michigan. Al Qasimi’s style can be seen in the surrealism of her visual compositions and the absorbing interplay between artificial pastel tones and textiles, reminiscent of camouflage. She observes the contemporary post-Internet culture and foregrounds topics such as identity, feminism, consumption, and economic growth, as well as the politics and legacy of synthetic materials. In Poltergeist, she juxtaposes earlier works with recent photographs, placing them in a new context.
Creating a mysterious, uncanny atmosphere – all the more real for being unreal – she also induces empathetic feeling for a strange ghostly creature. An accompanying video installation traces the origin of objects in an overwhelming capitalist cityscape, where nobody – including ghosts – is free from being branded a consumer. With Farah Al Qasimi . Poltergeist, C/O Berlin presents the first solo institutional exhibition in Europe of the artist, who is well-known in the US as an established star. The exhibition has been made possible by the K.S. Fischer Foundation.
The word “poltergeist” comes from the German language words poltern (“to make sound” and “to rumble”) and Geist (“ghost” and “spirit”); the term itself translates as “noisy ghost”, “rumble-ghost” or a “loud spirit”. In ghostlore, a poltergeist is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed.
Most claims or fictional descriptions of poltergeists show them as being capable of pinching, biting, hitting, and tripping people. They are also depicted as capable of the movement or levitation of objects such as furniture and cutlery, or noises such as knocking on doors. Foul smells are also associated with poltergeist occurrences, as well as spontaneous fires and different electrical issues such as flickering lights.
Al Qasimi lives between New York and Abu Dhabi. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Photography and Music from the Yale School of Art in 2017. Her work has been acquired by prominent collections including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Guggenheim, Abu Dhabi; and Tate Modern, London. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2021); Wayne State University Undergraduate Library, Detroit (2020); Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2019), and elsewhere. Additionally, her work has featured in group exhibitions at Rencontres d’Arles (2021); Pera Museum, Istanbul (2021); Yokohama Triennial (2020); Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto; Aperture Foundation, New York; and Biennial of Contemporary Arab Photography, Paris.
In spring 2020, Public Art Fund showed her photographs at over 100 bus stops across New York City. Her book Hello Future, published by Capricious in 2021, was shortlisted the same year for the Aperture Foundation Photobook Prize. C/O Berlin presents works by national and international artists, supports emerging talents and organises educational events on visual media and art. It hosts its own exhibitions and realises projects in cooperation with national and international art institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; Albertina Museum Wien; Fotomuseum Winterthur; Fundacion Mapfre in Madrid; Sprengel Museum in Hanover; and Museum Folkwang in Essen. Since 2018, C/O Berlin has been presenting the annual C/O Berlin Talent Award, rewarding the winner with prize money, a solo exhibition and a publication. With numerous exhibitions and publications since its founding in 2000, C/O Berlin is known as one of the more active and renowned photographic institutions globally.
