84. Zanoba | Artworks

Welcome. Remain in the state of the Ihram, and place your feet in me. For you’ll need some protection before entering the future. I am zanoba, clinically clean. I’ll be your tour guide. You don’t need to do a thing, just let me be your feet. Much like a flying carpet, I’ll lift you high above the city and through closed doors, giving you access to places you never thought you could see. I’ll show you probable, possible and impossible futures for this city, our Mecca. Do not be afraid; there is nothing here that you have not imagined before.

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