Glaze

Medium: Moving Image
Year: 2020
Duration:  35 min 15
Edition: Edition of 4 + 1AP
Shipment: Hard drive

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About

The influence heralded by historic trade with South Asian countries, as well as reliance on foreign labour during the modernisation of the Arabian Gulf until the present day, has bred physical, economic, and social hybrids that have shaped cultural outcomes. In locating various eateries that specialise in producing desserts in Sharjah, an investigation was carried out through the filming of the space, objects, and actions taking place there daily. By centering desserts in the work, there are links drawn with the idea of sweetening as a guise for other flavours. Sugar has been a source of problematics for its historical connotations with enslaved labour, colonial enterprising and class signifiers, as well as a demonised health hazard and a source of “sinful” temptation & indulgence. Along with the symbolics of sugar and desserts, the work also employs a fictive text, in which a narration threads the narrative across.