Al Qasimi’s photographs are filled with flowers but they are rarely real. Instead, they are represented metonymically as object, ornament, pattern, and image. In a series of flower studies, their natural forms are translated materially into a glinting crystal trinket, a perishable garnish carved from a tomato or carrot, and a sugary decoration piped in pink frosting. By capturing this material metamorphosis Al Qasimi amplifies the ways in which flowers are commonly consumed as ornamental commodities intended to embellish and entice.

 –– Murtaza Vali

Titled after Farah Al Qasimi’s photograph Star Machine (2021) and exhibition showing at The Art Gallery of Western Australia curated by Rachel Ciesla, this publication presents a selection of photographs from new and existing bodies of work, wrapped in found images sourced from Alibaba merchants, speaking to our shared aspirations for transcendence beyond our daily lives.
Understanding the camera as a relational tool, Al Qasimi’s hyper-colourised and richly textured photographs focus our attention upon how we see, feel and initiate contact with people, places and ways of being within today’s world. 

Published in collaboration with the Simon Lee Foundation Institute of Contemporary Asian Art and Mousse Publishing.

Text by Murtaza Vali

Softcover 23 x 30.5 cm
76 pages
ISBN 9788867495856
2023
English