Collection: Moza Almatrooshi

Almatrooshi used video and food in “Irreversible Act I: Sugar Rush” (2017), a work that comments on the speed of urban development in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The film captures an aerial view of a pot on the stove. Mounds of white sugar slowly carmelizes into auburn flecks, a small spot at first that darkens and widens as the video continues. The crystals on the edge of the burned spot suddenly become individually visible, white against the brown background, before they too turn brown. The work represents the irreversibility, the irrevocability of some changes; once made, the original can never be recuperated.

After “Irreversible Act I,” Almatrooshi continued to work with film in her piece “To Whom The Sun May Be of Concern” (2018). Almatrooshi produced this 17-minute, 30-second video in response to the news that archaeologists working in the emirate of Sharjah had unearthed coins indicating that the region had once been ruled by a queen.