Mariam Alkatheeri, Creativity Revolution, 2020.

Sohaila Ahmed, Staff Reporter

Art talents of the new generation were recently brought to light during the exhibition ‘We Are Wondering’ (WAW) that is being until January 31st, 2021. The exhibition is being organised at the cafe-gallery Maisan 15 in Dubai, featuring 6 UAE-based artists with ages ranging from 18 to 22, who came together to introduce different talents to art lovers in the UAE.

The artists included Ziad Al Najjar, Maryam AlHuraiz, Mariam Alkatheeri, Lubnah Ansari, Zeid Jaouni, and Lily Wallis, who came up with the idea of intriguing their audience by centring their artworks around the idea of wondering. In the ‘WAW’ exhibition, the art pieces are accompanied by labels with which the artists pose questions to the guests.

Exhibition curator Daniel H. Rey stated “these visceral questions, entirely generated by the artists, invite the audience to reflect on this past year and revisit their intentions as 2021 unfolds.” He added that the questions range from confusion to childhood to personal victories to one’s responsibility for the environment.

The young artists showcase their talents by working with collage, textile, painting, photography, graphic design, animation, and video art.

In this space, ‘wondering’ is framed as a collective endeavor, in which artists and audience activate each other’s curiosity one question at a time. Wondering, to consider other meanings, also entails interacting with a new cohort of creative wonders.

Moreover, the exhibition is aimed at connecting the audience with Dubai’s new creative wonders by emerging young artists who are active in the UAE community. The showcasing at WAW came to life by the provided support of various curators and artists such as Rami Farook, Munira Al Sayegh, Aliyah Alawadhi and Zuhoor Al Sayegh.

Through their pieces, the talented artists share moments in their practice that carry movement, fluidity, illusion, and hint at self-determined realities. As we reconcile with 2020 and reinvent for 2021, the artworks grant the audience lax playfulness while allowing for voluntary introspection.

Mariam Alkatheeri, the 21-year-old Emirati artist said, “My photography is based on expression editorials and I’m driven by a passion of capturing the beauty of each individual person. The photoshoot presented at WAW exhibition was the first photo shoot I had after quarantine! I called this art piece ‘Creativity Revolution’ because it really identified what I was feeling after being locked down for more than a month.”