46. The Club | Artworks

I represent the first football club to be registered in the whole of Saudi. Al Wahda wasn’t always our name. We were originally called Al Hizb or some such, back in 1914. But we always had these colours, the red and the white, and 1945 was the greatest year for winning. We are the Knights of Mecca! Mecca’s people made champions! We have celebrated more victories than we have ever had losses – here in Mecca, that is. Further afield, we’d rather not say.

We are the club of Mecca – well, the winning club. There is of course the Hera Club too, for our people need a team to back and a team with whom to compete. So choose your side. Make sure it’s the winning one. If you go with Hera then don’t be surprised when you lose 100 to 1!

This work transcends the objects. Ultimately, what I’m working with isn’t only the artefacts themselves, but the stories attached to them. For me, each tale is the manifestation of the object, and each object is a tangible materialisation of an underlying narrative. The work finds its equilibrium somewhere between the stories and chronology they’re chaptered into, the objects becoming knots or points along the timeline, woven into stories as part of the language of this artwork. Each story draws out a tale that intends to trigger imagination and memory, mixing fact with fiction, with the ultimate aim of straddling, conflating and confusing fixed notions of history to open up the unofficial histories that shape the character of place and memory.
Ahmed Mater
2014