All is changed, 9/11 by Shadia Alem
Installation & Art book 2002-2003

Some artworks from the installation

Video of the installation

Concept

"All is changed 9/11." by Shadia Alem

In this collection I am trying to capture what is hidden, what is happening to our universal souls, the world’s image, the destructive impact of (9/11) on us, on me as a Saudi, who were accused of terrorism due to the fact that 13 out of 18 hijackers were Saudis. The incident of 9/11 calls to attention the changing international moral strategies, questioning the illusionary line between the aggressors and the victims.

These artworks show destruction, how we were caught in suspicion and swept by the flooding destructive acts, and daily news, like bars of dynamite carrying us and shocking us with daily deaths and frustrations.

Death and aggression became part of our daily scene, either in the media or in whatever country we sought. Death, we are left with it face to face, to surrender to its dominant power or escape it by building something constructive out of our daily ashes.

The closing work in this collection is constructed of deformed red as a blood-print, a rage print, a (STOP) sign, raised in the face of the flooding aggression, the violation of life, and the death of values.

But still there is a hope. These works were produced by fire. Fire carries contradiction in itself. There is a limit to tranquility, beyond which activity begins again. The circulation of elements is the most fundamental version of the dialectic between life and death, between the free and the bound states of energy.

Medium

20 tableaux of burned artworks, chaotic news and ashes, to cover the period since 9/11/2001. As the following:
1) 19 Tableaux, (size 99 by 79) of double and triple Acrylic glass trapping formations of distorted artworks and images of mixed media.
2) A construction of rolled News’ headlines about 9/11, cut from Al-Riyadh Newspaper, the official Newspaper in Saudi Arabia, covering the incident and its aftermath and chaos all through the years of 2001/2002.

ART BOOK

Acrylic on paper