Monira Al Qadiri on the local environment, fossil fuels and public art

Her multifaceted practice spans sculpture, installation, film and performance and explores unconventional gender identities, petro-cultures and their possible futures.

With the opening of her public sculpture, Devonian, at Southbank Centre in 2022, Al Qadiri answered a few questions about her practice and the making of 2022’s Bagri Commission piece.

Can we start with a little about your background; what was your first encounter with art?

My mother, Thuraya Al-Baqsami, is an artist mostly working in painting and printmaking. I basically grew up in her studio, so art was around me ever since I gained consciousness as a child. Making art was equivalent to play when we were kids, and being creative was an everyday task that we all partook in as a family.

You moved to Japan, on your own, at just 16 and stayed for just over a decade; how do you think that experience shaped you as a person, and as an artist?

Yes, of course! The time in Japan shaped me as a person, as I was very young when I moved there. No matter how much I want to distance myself from this experience, it has affected deep parts of my being, especially my visual and aesthetic appreciation. I don’t think my work would appear the way it does if I didn’t spend so much time there. Japanese ‘hyper-visual’ culture is ingrained in my process, and I’ve made my peace with that.

As you mentioned, your mother is an artist as well as your sister; what is it like coming from a creative family? Do you often discuss your work and ideas with one another?

Yes, all the time. My sister Fatima Al Qadiri is a musician and she creates scores for almost all of my film and video works. I feel as if we have a telepathic relationship, as we are always on the same wavelength somehow. We have been collaborating for as long as I can remember.

In addition to Japan, you have spent time in Kuwait, Lebanon and now Berlin among many other places. How does where you are based, and your local environment, impact your work?

I’ve realised with time that my mind is constantly held captive by past experiences. When I was in Japan, I was longing for Kuwait, and in Beirut I was nostalgic for Japan. I am always looking backwards in my work, not forwards. That feeling of tragic longing is very inspiring to me and it manifests itself in my practice. The place I currently live in – Berlin – does not appear in my work as of yet, but I know that when I go somewhere else it will magically begin to reveal itself. I guess this process is slightly different from artists who are immediately inspired by their current surroundings. I am always trying to capture that which is gone, the ruins of my memory. In Arabic poetry there is a trope called ‘crying at the ruins’ and I think that’s what I am subconsciously doing.

As an artist who works across sculpture, installation, performance and video, what comes first when approaching a new work? Is it the idea of what you want to convey, or the medium in which you wish to convey it?

With all the technology available to us today, I think being multi-disciplinary has become a very accessible position for an artist to be in. For me, the idea comes first, then the medium. Nevertheless, I always like to approach the medium as being the inevitable outcome of my idea – that there was no other method to express the concept I am working on. In this way, the use of the medium itself becomes a political, conceptual construct.

Oil is a recurring motif through your work. What is it that draws you to this substance and its iconography?

I am from Kuwait, and my country – including the entire Gulf region that surrounds it – has been entirely dependent on the oil industry for many decades. Because of this particular history, we have lived with this substance for as long as I can remember: incredible levels of wealth have been and continue to be generated by it; wars have been waged in its name; memories and personhoods have been formed around it. The infrastructure of the oil economy is part of our cityscapes, our childhood wonderings, like some kind of ‘public art’.

Yet there is a huge divide between the pre-oil and post-oil eras in the region. The way of life has been transformed to a point of no return. I began to imagine that oil is some kind of alien invader that landed there and changed everything. I see it as a character in a story, or a kind of genie. Both a miracle and a curse. It fascinates me.

As a fossil fuel, oil – and our reliance on it – are now at the forefront of the climate crisis. Do you believe that art and artists have a role to play in the fight against the escalating climate crisis?

I believe that artists can provide new ways of looking at the world, and one of them is to hold a magnifying lens against the absurdity that is fossil fuel extraction. In essence, we drill holes in the earth to extract the remains of ancient beings that formed into a black substance over hundreds of millions of years, just to power our cars or computers. If you just think about it rationally, even for a brief moment, you immediately understand how unsustainable and destructive this practice is. In my works, I want to pre-empt the end of oil by creating monuments and mythologies around it, as if to eulogise it, like a long lost history from ancient peoples.

Fossil fuels are also at the heart of Devonian (2022), your sculpture which sits on the Riverside Terrace of the Southbank Centre. Can you tell us a little more about the evolution of this particular work?

I wanted to create a work that highlights the concept of fossil fuels, but within a local context. I found out that most of the oil deposits in the northern hemisphere consist of the remains of beings that existed in the Devonian period, almost 400 million years ago. The period in question was named after the area of Devon, England, because that’s where the fossils of these animals and organisms were first studied. I found this concept very interesting, especially the illustrations of these animals, which could be part-fiction and part-reality, as some of them really look like they are from another world, which aligns with my idea around oil being some kind of alien being.

Many of your works fluctuate between past, present and future, often combining different cultural moments with personal memories or family history, such as your video piece Diver (2018). Devonian is a similar work in that it brings prehistoric creatures into the present to comment on the future of our world. Can you talk more about your relationship to time and hopes for the future?

I like to time travel within my ideas. I want to embed a longer arc of history within my works, one that is not focused only on the present. Many artists are always looking towards the future as well, but I very much am mystified by the past and the impossibility of accessing it, so all of these epochs come together in my work. As for hope: I am not sure what this word means to me. Suffering and sadness are also part of the human condition. Perhaps my view of the future is slightly dystopian.

Devonian is the latest in a series of public sculptures you have created in the past few years. What draws you to make art in the public realm and what do you hope people take away from their experience with your work?

Creating art in public space is a passionate endeavour for me; I really feel it is the true democratisation of art. Anything can happen. Strange encounters, strong emotional reactions, vandalism…and also memory, time, and climate can affect the work. It is a wonderful, magical situation that cannot be achieved within the closed walls of galleries and museums. I am even grateful for the disappointments and difficulties that come with creating work for the public realm. It is truly exhilarating.

Devonian was the second of three annual commissions presented by the Hayward Gallery, in partnership with the Bagri Foundation. Aimed at providing artists from, or inspired by Asia and its diaspora with the opportunity to create a prominent public commission, this initiative adds to the programme of public outdoor art installations and exhibitions across the Southbank Centre’s iconic site.