Born in 1977 in Al Bahah, Saudi Arabia. Lives and works in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Zahrah Al Ghamdi is known for her site-specific installations that expand across architectural structures and natural landscapes, investigating both memory and history. Her material is often drawn from nature: such as bits of soil, clay, pebbles, leather, and water. Dr. Al Ghamdi sees these materials as containing “embodied memory”, and she shows how these substances are capable of revealing aspects of cultural identity, remembrance, and loss. Physical and often labor-intensive connection to her material is crucial, as is site-specificity and the re-using of traditional methods. Al Ghamdi’s practice is a sensorily invested one, wherein the smell, touch and weight of sand, leather, acacia, cotton, or plaster are essential to how each material is employed.
Recent selected exhibitions include Coachella Desert X, Coachella, 2021; “Streams Move Oceans”, Athr Gallery, Jeddah, 2019 (solo); “After Illusion”, Saudi pavilion at the Venice Biennale, 2019 (solo); and “An Inanimate Village”, British Museum, London, 2017 (solo).
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Life
by Zahrah Al Ghamdi
Noor Riyadh
FESTIVAL
