21 May – 2 July 2022
I LOVE NATURE
Farah Al Qasimi

The Island Club presents I Love Nature, a solo exhibition by Farah Al Qasimi, comprising photographs, video, and wallpaper. Exploring the exaggerated yet carefully crafted imagery through which commercial fantasies of Eden are made and sold, the exhibition negotiates a world in which consumption is sublimated, the sublime commodified, and Paradise is capital’s ultimate promise.

 

I think I went too far on a recess.
I was having a bad day, and I went a little longer than was recommended.
I’ve been here for hours. Or maybe days, or weeks. I don’t know.
There’s no reason to leave when I feel so good.
I wake up, I swim in the water, I feel weightless.
I feel like I exist outside the bounds of my skin.
I feel held in love and kindness.
I feel large, but not heavy.
I feel alive, but I don’t suffer.

– Excerpt from The Swarm, Farah al Qasimi, 2021, 13:52 mins, HD video, colour, sound

 

Farah Al Qasimi (b.1991, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; lives and works in Brooklyn and Dubai) works in photography, video, and performance. She received her MFA from the Yale School of Art and has participated in residencies at the Delfina Foundation, London, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MO; Public Art Fund, New York; Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai; the San Francisco Arts Commission, San Francisco; the CCS Bard Galleries at the Hessel Museum of Art, New York; Helena Anrather, New York; The Third Line, Dubai; The List Visual Arts Center at MIT, Cambridge; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto; and the Houston Center for Photography, Houston.

Al Qasimi is a recipient of the New York NADA Artadia Prize, the Aaron Siskind Individual Photographer’s Fellowship, and the 2020 Capricious Photo Award. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, UAE; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam; Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick; and NYU’s Grey Art Gallery, New York.

OPENING 21 May 2022, 18:00-21:00
DURATION 21 May – 2 July 2022
OPENING HOURS Thursday to Saturday, 12:00-18:00