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April 23, 2014

ZAHRA AL-MAHDI

Intersections

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This collection of paintings highlights the connections and inter-dependencies between seemingly autonomous bodies; it emphasizes the intersections between human beings, animals, plants, and objects. The bodies addressed in the collection are given deliberate “improper” functions to dissociate their assumed meaning from the prevalent system they function in. This exposure demarcates how intersecting bodies encounter, merge, impact, and even create one another in an ongoing process of metamorphosis. The richness of the unlikely interaction between bodies inverses habitual signification, changes perception of predetermined roles, and destabalizes humancentric hierarchies. By questioning the normativity of utilitarian meanings and functions assigned to such bodies, this collection challenges the dominant logic of the “origin,” the “absolute,” and “nature.” It also posits alternative ways of coexistence.

Zahra Al-Mahdi (1989) is an English Literature graduate from Kuwait University, College of Arts. She is an artist, writer, and filmmaker. Her debut graphic novel titled We, The Borrowed was published in 2016, and she is currently working on her online miniseries Bird Watch.

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