Misk Art Grant 2022

Saraab

Click here to view the virtual exhibition 

Click here to view (and download) the exhibition catalog

On December 5, 2022, Misk Art Institute presents “Misk Art Grant: Saraab,” an exhibition displaying works by six exceptional artists from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Morocco selected as part of the third annual grant program to help support and promote mid-career and emerging artists. The artists featured in this show reflect on their experiences and develop their own understanding of the theme Saraab through surreal desert reimaginations, optical illusions, and retelling of cultural folklore tales and traditions.

Why is it that when we look towards the future, we tend to cling to the past? We are held in nostalgia’s saccharine grip, longing to belong, to share collective memories in this fragmented world. Nostalgia is an evolution of memory that does not exist in real life but lives in our interpretation, thoughts, and imagination—a mirage, Saraab. Reflecting on the past evokes memories, ideas, and personal perceptions that elicits a feeling of familiarity infused with surreal and fantastical elements.

This year the Misk Art Grant theme "Saraab" invited artists from the Middle East and North Africa to reflect on the past and explore the relationship between movement and memory, reflection and refraction, the invisible and the visible.

Misk Art Grant recipients: Abdulmohsen AlBinali, Athoub AlBusaily, Juri AlFadhel, M’hammed Kilito, Rawdha AlKetbi, and Zeinab AlHashemi.