raja’a khalid portfolio...projects 2013-2020 animal spirits (2020)warm eden (2020) tesla desert...

Raja’a Khalid Portfolio

Projects2013-2020

Animal Spirits (2020)Warm Eden (2020)Tesla desert drift (2020)a.quiet.wave (2019)Hunting and Shooting (2018)FASTEST WITH THE MOSTEST (2017)Change Your Life (2017)SOLAR FLARE, ALWAYS RED (2017)Oud (2014 - 2016)Useful Tropical Plants (2015)Idyllic Place or State (2015)Untitled Dubai Topos Project (2014)Desert Golf (2013)Southeast to Armageddon (2013)+Artist CV (updated July 2020)

Animal Spirits2020

Animal Spirits was the title given to a body of work I presented at the Jan Van Eyck Academie Open Studios (5-7 March 2020).

The three artworks featured in the exhibition include a series of 3D knitted neon green snakeskin tapestries (inspired by a 2019 Off-White + Nike collaboration), VOSS glass water bottles engraved with snake motifs and workout music from a high-end spinning studio in Dubai.

The symbol of the ‘ouroboros’ and the concept of cyclical renewal is employed here to resonate with popular current day economies of movement, health and asceticism. The imagistic juxtapositions of the ouroboros with ‘spinning’ and the tapestries and VOSS bottles (in reference to Kim Kardashian’s VOSS filled fridge) refer to our obsession around contouring a physique for the new millenium. Here, the fitness industry is symbolic of and vital to the overall reshaping of the individual as a kinetic, flexible being, able to easily bend to the constant state of precarity, a typical feature of contemporary life.

Left: Backstage at Virgil Abloh’s 2019 Off-White show, Kim Kardashian’s Instagram post about her fridge.Overleaf: Documentation of snkskins (2020), VOSS (2020) and Numb/Encore (2020).

snkskns2020Installation including 3D knitted tapestries of trending neon green snake print. The tapestries were made by the California-based knitting lab that originally created Nike’s famous Flyknit technology.

VOSS2020Custom engraved VOSS bottles

Numb/Encore2020Playlists from a spinning studio in Dubai, speakers, laptop, acrylic, steel, plasti dip

Warm Eden2020

Warm Eden (previously titled Villa Plumeria) is a performative reading and slideshow produced for artist Kent Chan’s Hot House exhibition (14-21 February, 2020).

In this short story, I delve into the colonially derived eco-cultural commodity network that looms large behind the current day wellness economy.

Warm Eden is set in a ladies-only yoga retreat in Bali and aims to cast a sideways, comical but critical glance at yoga, a physical practice that has invited an unparalleled gaze fixity. On a paradise beach, next to a waterfall, in a tropical rainforest, anywhere you look, there’s always yoga.

The short story includes young flexible women, Instagram, a paradise landscape, coconut scented body cream, self-doubt, tropical heat, neoliberal alienation and a dead body in the swimming pool.

Left: A post from Australian model and Instagram yoga star Sjana Elise. Overleaf: Photos from the Warm Eden reading at Kent Chan’s Hot House on 14 February, 2020 at Jan Van Eyck Academie.

Warm Eden2020Performative reading of a short murder story set at a ladies only yoga retreat.

Tesla desert drift2020

Tesla, with its all electric powertrain and vegan interiors, is quite a formidable symbol of a neo-liberal contemporary culture steeped in a particular political brand of human and nature engagement. Taking its inspiration from an online video posted by the ‘Tesla Owners Club of Saudi Arabia’, Tesla desert drift is a scent based artwork consisting of a fragrance that captures the essence of ‘a Tesla drifting on asphalt in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert.’ The piece was commissioned by Jeddah 21, 39.

With notes of Tesla’s vegan interiors, asphalt/tarmac, rubber and sand, the scent oils are presented in custom made hand blown irdidescent glass bottles designed to look like oil slick. The work weaves a diverse ecology of signs; post-oil motorization, politics of green tech, masculine youth culture, societies of exclusivity, subterranean narratives, Gulf urban mythology, ritual and male initiation.

Left: Fragrance tests produced by California-based scent lab Air Variable for Tesla desert drift.Overleaf: Documentation from the Jeddah 21, 39 (2020).

Acknowledgements:Air Variable (California), Anjali Srinivasan (Boston) and Brian Mullany (Berlin).

Tesla desert drift2020Custom produced fragrance oils (vegan leather, asphalt/tarmac, hot rubber tires), hand blown glass, audio

a.quiet.wave2020

a.quiet.wave was commissioned by New York University Abu Dhabi Gallery for the exhibition Speculative Landscapes curated by Maya Alison (16 September - 7 December 2019).

The exhibition space was set up to resemble a yoga studio, and contained all necessary materials and props including mats, blocks and straps as well as a meditation garden. The green is “Quiet Wave” by the color-forecasting brand Coloro, one of their five key colors for Spring/Summer 2021.

During the two-month long exhibition, yoga instructors from Dubai were invited to use the space for practice and flows. The flows and poses were recorded by them and then circulated online through their own personal Instagram accounts. To view performances from a.quiet.wave search for #aquietwave

Left: A post from Yoga Gypsy Warrior for a.quiet.wave.Overleaf: Installation views from Speculative Landscapes and Instagram posts for #aquietwave.

Acknowledgements:Special thanks to Vanessa Kim Roux, Lizel Cameron, Mayassa Al Tajir, Nitai Krishna and Jaedana Ward.

a.quiet.wave2019Installation including neon signage, yoga equipment, Himalayan salt lamps, pebbles and intermittent performances by yoga instructors. The performances are documented on their own personal Instagram accounts (see #aquietwave)

Hunting and Shooting2016 - 2018

Between 2016 and 2018 I undertook three long term research projects that resulted in different performative and film-based works. The research was concerned with performing activities that are typically the reserve of elite male Emirati society; the art of falconry, racing Salukis (desert sighthounds) and shooting handguns.

For the shooting, I started with a beginner’s course and eventually progressed onto the advanced shooting programme. I learned how to safely shoot Berettas, Glocks and CZ75s and rifles, the shooting was mostly 9mm but also included .22 and .223 caliber.

For the falconry, I completed a course in falconry and began to volunteer at a birds of prey. During this time I learned how to work safely with falcons as well as hawks, eagles and owls. The culminating research was used to produce a performative reading.

My research work with Salukis became a film-based piece titled Kiss of Allah. Left: Me flying and feeding a gyrfalcon.Overleaf: Documentation of Advanced Shooting Techniques (2018 - current), Palace gossip (2018) and Kiss of Allah (2016).

Advanced Shooting Techniques2018 (ongoing)Durational performance of myself learning marksmanship

Palace gossip2018Performative reading of a story related to fast cars and falconry; performance includes a gyrfalcon, falconer’s glove, hood, jesses

Kiss of Allah2016HD Video of a purebred feathered white Saluki hound with a ‘Kiss of Allah’ mark on the nape of the neck.

FASTEST WITH THE MOSTEST2017

FASTEST WITH THE MOSTEST was a solo exhibition (Tashkeel, Dubai, 21 September - 26 October 2017). It developed my ongoing interest in current-day depictions of ritual, fetish, aura, desire and discipline. Part Patrick Bateman, part Wile E. Coyote, part Western Consultant, the show was about business cards, crunches, lunges, trophies, Dri-fit tech, race day speeds, reversible no slip yoga mats, Uber rides and online supplement shopping.

“Drawing its title from a 1960 Looney Tunes episode featuring Road Runner, Raja’a Khalid’s “Fastest with the Mostest” continued the artist’s witty deconstruction of prevailing tropes of hegemonic masculinity. Specifically, the show mounted a critique of a neo-yuppie lifestyle increasingly taking hold in Dubai, exemplified by the figure of the expat consultant who splits his day between working and working out, performing both acts of what Khalid terms “conspicuous production” with a discipline and fervor traditionally reserved for religious rituals.”

Extract from Murtaza Vali’s review for Artforum January 2018 (print).

Left: Exhibition text. Overleaf: Installation views and artworks.

_____ is a solo runner.

People always invite him to go running with them, but he always declines.

A few days ago, he placed an order for Acme Triple-Strength Fortified Leg Muscle Vitamins (family size) and Acme Hi-Speed Tonic from an online supplement store. His coach thinks he is training enough now—12 hours a week, in addition to bootcamp sessions and a group hot yoga class every weekend. But one of his great joys is to run alone.

Every morning he wakes up at five and calls an Uber to take him to the other side of the interchange. It’s always a white Lexus with two bottles of icy mineral water in the cup holders.

The car stops just outside the city, where there is miles and miles of quiet road lined with trees to keep the desert from blowing in. Here, he runs seven-minute miles for an hour.

He usually ends his run at the Emarat petrol station and calls another Uber to take him back to his apartment, where he completes the rest of his routine:

An eleven minute plank workout, three sets,

Followed by stomach crunches,

He can do a thousand now.

Then a hundred push ups,

Pull ups and dips.

FASTEST WITH THE MOSTEST2017Installation view

uberBLUE2017Silkscreen on Dri-fit tech fabric custom car cover for Lexus ES350, bicycle hooks

TROPHY I2017Resin, styrocubes, carton

TROPHY II2019Resin, Nike gym bag (not included in original exhibition but part of the same series)

SYLOF2017Acrylic on five Lululemon Reversible (Un) Mats (bottom left)

WILL TRAVEL2017Business cards (1000), custom powder coated aluminum

PURE CHANGE 2017Custom airbrush artwork on ON Energy protein powder jars, powder coated aluminum

uberNEON2017Silkscreen on Dri-fit tech fabric custom car cover for Lexus ES350, bicycle hooks

uberNEON II2017Silkscreen on cool mesh tech fabric custom car cover for Lexus ES350, Carrefour bag

GIGI EYES2017Archival inkjet print

sh-r-k2017Custom embroidery on denim jacket (originally not presented as part of the exhibition but was part of the same body of work)

Change Your Life2017

Change Your Life was an installation and performance commissioned by Alserkal (13 March - 29 April 2016)

Change Your Life set out to critique a fashionable practice of performative masculinity (i.e. working out) and place it as a contemporary motif of religiosity.

A moving tableau, Change Your Life consisted of a gym which was open during the commission’s five weeks to pre-selected young, male fitness professionals to visit and work out. The installation looked carefully at Alserkal Avenue’s proximity to an increasing number of fitness centres within the framework theorised by Peter Sloterdijk in his 2013 book You Must Change Your Life in which the German philosopher tracked the history and philosophy of practice and discipline. By making their connections more explicit, the commission exposed the blurring between the potentially aesthetic, ascetic and athletic demands of contemporary life in the Gulf.

Left: Installation view.Overleaf: Installation views and documentation of performances.

Change Your Life2017Installation including gym equipment, adjustable benches, rubber flooring, punching bag, mirror panels, LED filters and intermittent live performances by professional personal trainers

SOLAR FLARE, ALWAYS RED2016

SOLAR FLARE, ALWAYS RED was a solo exhibition that took place at Grey Noise, Dubai (13 November 2016 - 7 January 2017).

“A sharp intimacy suffuses Dubai-based artist Raja’a Khalid’s show like the warmth of late afternoon sunlight. Reflections bounce off the iridescent automotive-paint-coated panels of High Noon (all works 2016), where tangerine gives way to deep orange, and Santa Barbara, which itself is seafoam but casts onto the floor a lurid green. Perhaps donning the US military-issue Oakleys set on a dune-textured altar of a shelf in sun and sand worship, or the bomber jacket, Solaro, would shield one from the light. Made from the titular suiting fabric, the latter’s underside is shot through with red, which colonialists believed would protect their pale skins from harsh tropical rays.”

Extract from Rahel Aima’s review of SOLAR FLARE, ALWAYS RED for Artforum January 2018 (online).

Left: Exhibition text and Buraq (2016). Overleaf: Installation views and artworks.

1984 was a year of champagne wishes and caviar dreams.

An X-class solar flare erupts on the surface of the sun. There are reports of radio blackouts and radar disturbances.

In Dubai, against a backdrop of sunshine and palm trees two men discuss the feasibility of making an airline for the city.

Eight thousand miles away Madonna puts out MATERIAL GIRL. A new gospel of deterritorialized materialism is born. On Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Robin Leach ends each episode with a toast “to everyone watching at home – CHAMPAGNE WISHES AND CAVIAR DREAMS.” The backdrop is always sunny with palm trees.

The works in SOLAR FLARE, ALWAYS RED are inspired by mythologies of power, the aesthetics of consumerism and economies of desire – (1984–present).

Manmade landscapes defined by UV rays, tinted windows, highway mirages, sirens, hallucinations and body work. Matte, pearl, satin, candy clear, chrome and plasti dip. Preserved palm leaves and Sephora Always Red. Long lasting colors that will. not. budge. In the Old Kingdom, elaborate mummification and embalming rituals were reserved for the Pharaohs and elite members of society. Adornment improved one’s attractiveness in the eyes of both ordinary people and the gods. That was privatized immortality then. Now is the time for Tom Ford Oud Wood Beard Oil and Oakley Ballistic sunglasses.

SOLAR FLARE, ALWAYS RED2016 Installation view

High Noon2016Automotive chameleon paint, steel, MDF, rubber, 5 panels 182 x 121 cm (each)

xxx, xx, x2016Agave parryi, Aloe vera, Golden barrel cacti, Agave americana, Mock azalea, Dracaena marginata, ceramic pots

bec2016Set of five carbon fiber Fred Perrin La Griffe knives

Raptor I, II2016Archival inkjet prints

Buraq2016Custom-made Swarovski crystal car decal, acrylic

Sirens2016 Invisible performance; members of Emirates cabin crew are invited to the gallery opening and requested by the artist to wear Sephora 01 ‘Always Red’ Lipstain which is part of the official female cabin crew uniform for Emirates.

Tom Ford Oud Wood2016Industrial scent diffuser, Tom Ford synthetic Oud type oil

Palm Leaves2016Twelve preserved palm leaves

Santa Barbara2016Automotive chameleon paint, steel, MDF, rubber, 5 panels 60 x 76 cm (each)

Oud 2014 - 2016

Between 2014 and 2016, I created a number of scent based works that explored Oud, a resinous heartwood used in Middle Eastern perfumery.

In Dubai, the Oud scent takes on its own spatial form and liveliness; here it is a highly institutional, bureaucratic smell. An affective and aesthetic depiction of systems, it arrives, moves, parts and departs, all the while commanding one to forge a filial bond with it. While a genuine Oud extract is considered more representative of the socio-political circuit of Oud perfumes (extraction, manufacturing, branding, selling), synthetic Oud (increasingly popular) further elucidates on the prevaling popularity of the note and the Arabian Peninusla’s association with luxury.

Left: Olfactive Gulf and Atmospheric Hegemony, a preface to my Oud research by Ahmad Makia for Future Anterior: Journal of Historic Preservation, History, Theory, and Criticism (Winter, 2016).Overleaf: Documentation of Oud Counter (2014), Oud Soaps (2015) and Fly Emirates (2016). Tom Ford Oud Wood (2016) was included earlier in the documentation of SOLAR FLARE, ALWAYS RED (2016).

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Artist Intervention: Olfactive Gulf and Atmospheric Hegemony

Raja’a Khalid and Ahmad Makia

Future Anterior: Journal of Historic Preservation, History, Theory, and Criticism

Vol. 13, No. 2 (Winter 2016), pp. 155-158Published by: University of Minnesota PressDOI: 10.5749/futuante.13.2.0155https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/futuante.13.2.0155

Page Count: 7

Topics: Ouds, Perfumes, Olfactory perception, Shopping malls, Hegemony, Public space, Resins, Signatures, International economics

Abstract

Oud fragrance, a resinous mold produced by infected aquaria and gyrinops trees, is the ubiquitous scent of the Gulf, used to perfume homes, bodies, and public spaces. In the UAE, one could suggest that oud ought to be included in the roster of national emblems, along with the camel, the dala, and the Land Rover, because of its invisible visibility across the country’s space. Dubai-based artist Raja’a Khalid has conducted the most prolific body of work on the spatial inclusion of oud into the public and its ecologically sourced networks. This artist intervention, prefaced by Ahmad Makia’s “Olfactive Gulf and Atmospheric Hegemony,” includes excerpts from Khalid’s 2014 Oud Counter and 2015 Oud Aura works.

Fly Emirates 2016Micro-encapsulated Oud fragrance embedded in 12 Fly Emirates - Real Madrid Home shirts (2015 - 2016) coat hangers, custom powder coated clothing rail

Oud Soaps2015Oud-scented soap bars and blocks (produced and cast by the artist)

Oud Counter2014Acrylic pedestal, ‘Black Agar’ synthetic Oud note 80ml (Givaudan), ‘Oud Blend’ synthetic Oud note 80ml (Firmenich)

Oud Counter2014 (pictured left)

Givaudan (Switzerland) and Firmenich (Switzerland) are two of the six industrial scent and flavor giants that manufacture nearly all the smells in all scented products in the world. Between the two of them ‘Black Agar’ (by Givaudan) and ‘Oud Blend’ (by Firmenich) provide Oud notes to virtually all perfumes with Oud basenotes including those listing organic extracts. While several Middle Eastern oil-based perfumers occasionally cite the use of authentic Oud extracts in their blends, occasionally, the extracts are used in conjunction with synthetic notes such ‘Black Agar’ and ‘Oud Blend’ to extend volume.

The two synths reside on a plinth, (a remake of an existing Oud counter at a popular shopping mall in Dubai), which simultaneously acts as an abstraction, a monolith and a convenient sampling station.

Oud Counter was funded by NYU - Abu Dhabi’s FIND Artistic Research Fellowship Award.

Oud Soaps2015

The various pieces in Oud Soaps were made in an attempt to track recent efforts by European aromachemical giants to synthesize the highly-coveted Middle Eastern olfactory note.

In order to keep up with growing international demand, many aromachemical companies now provide a large range of perfume notes mimicking the smells of Singaporean, Cambodian, Indian and Arabian Oud. 24 different synthetic Oud oils were sourced from global suppliers and used to create soap bars.

Oud Soaps24 bars of soap (each containing a different synthetic Oud perfume), greaseproof soap shipping boxes-Oudh SingaporeSoap bar with synthetic Oud oil (Oudh Singapore - French supplier synth)

Oud Soaps was funded in part by the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten and produced during a guest residency in 2015.

Fly Emirates2016

With a storefront aesthetic, the Fly Emirates installation comprises of a photograph of a 777 Emirates jet plane and multiple identical Real Madrid Home football shirts (2015 - 2016) emblazoned with the iconographic ‘Fly Emirates’.

The collection of shirts is embedded with the fragrance of Oud; a highly coveted resinous heartwood used obsessively in Middle Eastern perfumery.

By using a patented micro-encapsulated formula, the embedding process allows a continuous sustained release of the fragrance and a further controlled release as the fabric ‘moves’. Fly Emirates is intended as a nuanced critique of the region’s agon culture and its notions of masculinity, sport and adornment.

Installation views from ‘Sylvain Baumann, Justin Eagle, Raja’a Khalid’, VITRINE, Basel, 2016.

Useful Tropical Plants2015

Fifteen liters of air was sampled from ‘Greenhouse C – Useful Plants of the Tropics’ (Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Garden) using a desorption tube and GC analysis.

The resulting 2-page odor profile was then used to specially create a fragrance oil which was diffused using an industrial strength scent diffuser.

Left: Desorption tube analysis and signage for the greenhouse.Overleaf: Odor analysis report.

Useful Tropical Plants was generously funded by the Tiroler Künstlerschaft and the Büchsenhausen International Fellowship for Art and Theory (2014-2015).

Useful Tropical Plants2015Useful Tropical Plants fragrance oil was created based on the odor analysis report pictured above

Idyllic Place or State2015

Idyllic Place or State looks at the relationship between tropical imaginaries, colonial botany and modern notions of bounty, usefulness and exotic ornamentation.

An industrial strength scent diffuser disperses Useful Tropical Plants, a fragrance specially crafted to recreate the smell of Berlin Botanical Garden’s ‘Greenhouse C- Useful Plants of the Tropics.’

The scent is humid, mossy, earthy, ozonic, green, flowery and contains a large range of notes including Ylang Ylang, Jasmine, soil, metal, earth, mold and plastic. To produce the fragrance an air sample was collected from Greenhouse C and submitted to an air quality assessment lab for an odor analysis. The resulting odor profile contained both descriptors (fruity, sweet, olive, body cream, mushroom, soil, green etc.) and chemical compounds. Through a collaboration with an experienced fragrance chemist, the profile was used to recreate the closest approximation of the smell inside Greenhouse C.

On the wall hangs an image of leading fifties model Liz Benn, photographed for Vogue magazine on a tropical beach ‘somewhere’ in the Caribbean. This is when, colonial botany hands the

baton of manufacturing exotic imaginaries to the post-war world of fashion and global tourism. Benn was nineteen when she met her future husband John Pringle during a photo-shoot for Conde Nast in Jamaica. Pringle’s Scottish grandfather had amassed 100,000 acres of Jamaica’s sugar plantations near Montego Bay before the war, but with the decline in sugar prices, the Pringles had seen their fortunes dwindle. Once married, Liz and John Pringle returned to Jamaica to develop the Round Hill plantations at Montego Bay into a luxury beach resort, an unprecedented project at the time. As the first of its kind and frequented by the rich and famous, Round Hill became a model for similar resorts across the globe, many of which would reside in former European colonial outposts in the Caribbean, the East coast of Africa, East Asia and the South Pacific.

Idyllic Place or State was generously funded by the Tiroler Künstlerschaft and the Büchsenhausen International Fellowship for Art and Theory (2014-2015)

Left: Liz Benn, archival inkjet print (2015).Overleaf: Installation view.

Idyllic Place or State2015Useful Tropical Plants fragrance oil, industrial scent diffuser, archival inkjet print, Hibiscus flowers

Untitled Dubai Topos Project2014-2015

Using Dubai as a study, the Untitled Dubai Topos Project began as a log of architectural features that occur within our experiences of the everyday and ultimately shape them into something that is far more monumental. This initial record consisted of documenting architectural peculiarities within mundane public spaces such as supermarkets, shopping malls, and public parks etc.

By delivering an amalgam of lights, colors, smells, forms and sounds that appeal to our basic ideals of what modern life looks like; organized, pristine, managed, controlled etc., these sites provide a repeatable encounter with that which was once the dizzying Freudian unheimlich (or unhomeliness) but is now a wholly yet eerily welcome sense of comfort and security. So much in fact, that the safety of the public spatial experience (especially that which is as privatized as in Dubai) comes to eclipse the domestic space, which, becomes by comparison, too intimate and therefore too dark.

Early research was generously supported by NYU - Abu Dhabi’s FIND Artistic Research Fellowship Award.

Left: Dubailand, Dubai (2014).Overleaf: Research projects and artworks from Untitled Dubai Topos Project.

Preserved Palm leaves2014

Typically, 20-30 preserved leaves would be needed to make up a preserved palm tree, the type one would occasionally encounter in a shopping mall, airport lounge or hotel lobby in Dubai.

The process of preserving a tree requires freshly cut palm fronds (usually from Phoenix Canariensis, native to the Canary Islands and cultivated in Spain, Italy, Australia, Bermuda, the United States and New Zealand) to be collected from growing grounds and taken to specialized manufacturing facilities. The leaves would then be placed in a trough containing a proprietary biotech preservation solution. The leaves would draw the solution up into the plant, replacing the water in their cells with the preservative. During these steps the deterioration process of the plant material slows down and eventually comes to a complete stop. The solution includes humectants to keep leaves soft and pliable and to prevent them from becoming crispy. The solution contains a fire retardant for safety and also green dyes to keep leaves looking lush. A palm tree trunk would be recreated using either natural wood bark or coconut shell pieces; a rough fabric mesh would be added for extra ‘authenticity.’

The process retains the natural characteristics of the foliage

including the natural dried tip of the leaves. Preserved palm trees can be designed with multipurpose integrated usage, which can include everything from misting devices, lighting and speakers, to security cameras and surveillance systems.

A ubiquitous reminder of the state and its bureaucratic apparatus within the city, the date palm in Dubai is both constantly revered and repeatedly ignored. Inside and out, the trees’ omnipresence is analogous to an all-watching patriarchy (and its unapproachable standards), and so it is pertinent then, that it should persist within the same space, in multiple states of its own existence.

The preserved palm trees that recur in almost Escheresque manner in climate-controlled interior spaces in the Arabian Gulf are incidentally nothing more then images of their former selves, ‘embalmed’ for the lack of a better word, for the purposes of public space beautification projects.

Left: Box of preserved palm leaves.Overleaf: Documentation of Palm leaf (2014).

Palm leaf2014Preserved palm leaf

Boutique Noir2014

A concept brief was produced using character profiles of my own peers. The brief was then sent to a scent-marketing firm in Dubai asking for ambient fragrance recommendations.

-

The following recommendations were made from the firm’s existing catalog of fragrances.

Leather Lux

The enlivening scent of soft leather, zesty mandarin, white tea, and bergamot. Revved up with distinct notes of freesia and orange blossom, and veering to enchanting amber, musk, and oakmoss.

And,

Boutique Noir

Edgy and chic! Pepper-infused mango combined with the earthy and musky aroma of leather. Wet woods add sophistication and warmth. This fragrance is warm and slightly industrial. Ideal for hotels or facilities trying to add warmth to modern design.

‘Boutique Noir’ was chosen and installed using a Prolitec aroma diffuser.

Left: Scent marketing fragrance catalog. Overleaf: Documentation of Boutique Noir (2014).

Boutique Noir2014Prolitec aroma diffuser, ‘Boutique Noir’ ambience fragrance

Background Music Research2014

This research projecy looked at Dubai’s interior soundscapes, as experienced in one of the most public of sites here, the shopping mall, specifically the use of ambient music.

Although some of the smaller shopping centers do continue to use music CDs or extensive self-compiled playlists on a public address system, the larger malls in Dubai have bespoke compilations produced specifically by highly specialized BGM service providers. The most complex of these music setups is currently at use in Dubai Mall, where it is part of a much larger network of internal environment organization called Building Management Systems.

In Dubai Mall, a UK-based firm provides an 8-channel stream of music to 8 different mood zones inside the mall. The Multimedia Department office at Dubai Mall, has detailed color-coded floor plans that inform on what kind of mood each zone ideally presents; moods contain genres that range from chill out to instrumental lounge, to jazz and contemporary electronica. Each zone is then sub-divided for volume to correspond with its particular architectural features (glass, landscaping, waterfall, atrium height etc.). This way the experience of music throughout the mall is always maintained at a constant. For Dubai Mall acoustical

analysis, hardware and consultation is provided by Dubai-based LC Acoustics, an acoustic engineering firm that has worked with the entire spectrum of public spaces in the UAE, including shopping malls, museums and mosques. This combination of sacred and commercial sites brings the really interesting question of the Adha’an, the Islamic call to prayer, perhaps the most distinctive and indeed idiosyncratic sound feature of any Muslim society. At the moment the switch from ambient BGM to the Adha’an in shopping malls is manually conducted. A list of prayer times is provided by AWQAF (General Authority of Islamic Affairs) to the multimedia department of each shopping mall and multimedia personnel are responsible for switching off BGM and playing the Adha’an with one minute of silence on either side of the Adha’an. In Mall of the Emirates where there are two different address systems, one for the shopping mall and one for Ski Dubai, the Ski Dubai channel mutes itself for the duration of the Adha’an but does not play it.

Spotting a vital gap in the market, LC Acoustic has now developed a software system that will automatically trigger BGM systems to switch off at the correct Adha’an time and restart after the call to prayer is finished. The Call2Prayer program links itself directly to the AWQAF website and can trigger the appropriate response

(pre- Adha’an one minute silence, Adha’an recording and post- Adha’an silence) at the precise times without any manual interference. It can naturally be made to link itself to any prayer schedule provider and pretty soon it will also be able to connect itself to the NASA server, as a back up for if/when a regional website experiences a shutdown or crash, to continue providing the Adha’an at the accurate time. Inside the Burj Khalifa, a GPS system makes sure that the internal BGM system provides four different Adha’ans for each prayer due to the fact that the curvature of the earth can be viewed from its higher floors, making the sunset and sunrise times visibly different for viewers at different heights.

Music Player/ Adha’an2014

Using the research above, a sound piece was developed by creating an online account with a London-based firm specializing in bespoke ambient music content. The ambient music player was installed on a PC alongside a patented Islamic prayer software.

Left: BGM music map section from Dubai Mall, Call2Prayer software interface from LC Acoustics. Overleaf: BGM music maps provided by Dubai Mall BMS department and documentation of Music Player/ Adha’an (2014).

Background music maps from Dubai Mall, Dubai (2014)

Music Player/ Adha’an2014Desktop with ambient music player, patented Islamic prayer software, speakers

Desert Golf series2014

This series of rephotographed found press photos and magazines examined the introduction of golf into the harsh climate of the Middle East.

The short text below is appropriated from the back of a found press photograph of a desert golf course.

“These desert divot diggers are playing on a golf course built by the Arabian American Oil Co. for its employees. The players use red balls which stand out against the blankness of the sand fairways and the blackness of the greens. There is no roll on the sand.”

Overleaf: Photos from the Desert Golf series.

Fortune Golf2014Archival inkjet print

Desert Golf I, II, III, IV2014Archival inkjet prints

Desert Golf V, VI2014Archival inkjet prints

Southeast to Armageddon2013

Southeast to Armageddon was a solo project space exhibition at The Third Line, Dubai (30 October 2013 - 5 December 2013).

Exhibition text:Southeast to Armageddon is a small selection of images from the Middle East chapter of Raja’a Khalid’s ‘Minor Histories Archive’ project.

With an intention to question the objectivity of certain public documents, this body of work focuses on how the discovery of Middle Eastern oil in the 1930s was depicted in popular Western press at the time, and the American perception of Gulf oil companies in the forties and fifties.

The photographs in Southeast to Armageddon acquire a type of bizarre topical relevance with the artist’s retrospective investigation. They demand an ironic distance from the viewer to force him or her into asking how the term ‘Arabian’ functioned in the American mass consciousness, following the discovery of oil. The publications photographed here were for a very specific, western audience, and they are pedagogical to that end. Seen today, however, they make explicit that which has already been implicit in the relationship between the Middle East and the West, and raise questions about the

highly problematic politics of representation at work in the original documents.The answers, if these photographs can provide them, will be neither clear nor complete. In fact the artist anticipates for Southeast to Armageddon to be troublesome and somewhat jarring. With that she aims to dismantle any myths about the so-called ‘simplicity’ or ‘transparency’ of the photograph or the written word, reaffirming Walter Benjamin’s assertion that all cultural documents are inherently records of ‘barbarism.’

Left: Installation view.Overleaf: Artworks.

Southeast To Armageddon2013Archival inkjet print

Ancient Battleground2013Archival inkjet print

Life in Arabia2013Archival inkjet print

Golf in Arabia2013Archival inkjet print

American Envoy2013Archival inkjet print

Ships of the Desert2013Archival inkjet print

ARTIST CV b. 1984 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Raja’a Khalid is an artist and writer from Dubai. Her practice is concerned with the Arabian Gulf region and its contemporary narratives of work, wellness, commodity circulation, trends and consumer culture. Her work looks at the Gulf’s own streaming motifs of discipline, athleticism, adornment, fetish, desire, conspicuous production, idolatry, fitness, consultancy culture, neoliberal subjecthood and crypto-religiosity.

SOLO 2017 FASTEST WITH THE MOSTEST, Tashkeel, Dubai2016 SOLAR FLARE, ALWAYS RED, Grey Noise, Dubai2013 Southeast to Armageddon, The Third Line Gallery/ Project Space, Dubai

GROUP 2020 Open Studios, Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht2020 I Love You, Urgently, curated by Maya El Khalil, Jeddah 21,39, Jeddah2019 Speculative Landscapes, curated by Maya Allison, NYUAD Art Gallery, Abu Dhabi 2019 Age of You, curated by Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto 2018 Crude, curated by Murtaza Vali, Art Jameel, Dubai2018 ANTI - 6th Athens Biennale, curated by Stefanie Hessler, Kostis Stafylakis and Poka-Yio, , Athens2018 Art Athina, in collaboration with 3 137, Athens2018 ARCOmadrid, with Grey Noise (Dubai), Madrid2017 Bitter Bites, curated by Blanca Serrano and Juanita Solano, Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space, New York2016 Sylvain Baumann, Justin Eagle, Raja’a Khalid, VITRINE, Basel2016 welcome to what we took from is the state, curated by Sadia Shirazi, Queens Museum, New York2016 1497, Green Art Gallery, Dubai 2016 In Search of Lost Time, curated by Amal Khalaf, Brunei Gallery, London2015 Like the Deserts Miss the Real, curated by Myriam Ben Salah, Galerie Steinek, Vienna2015 Resistance and Amnesia # 2 – On Failed Utopias, Living Myths and Coloniality Today, Kunstpavillon, Innsbruck 2015 Accented, curated by Murtaza Vali, Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah2014 Resistance and Amnesia – On the Formation of Social Memory, Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen, Innsbruck 2014 Desert Golf, Sikka Art Fair, Dubai 2013 Freeschool, Gary Snyder Project Space, New York2012 Shaking Paper, Tjaden Gallery, Ithaca, New York2012 Cornell MFA Exhibition, White Box Gallery, New York 2012 Art with a Petit à, Tjaden Gallery, Ithaca, New York2012 THE STATE: Domination, Hegemony and The Panopticon, Traffic Gallery, Dubai2011 Yeah!, Tjaden Gallery, Ithaca, New York2010 The Dubai Episode, The Third Line Gallery/ Project Space, Dubai

PERFORMANCE 2020 VIlla Plumeria, Jan Van Eyck Academie, as part of Kent Chan’s Hot House, Maastricht2018 Palace gossip, Grey Noise, Dubai

AWARDS & RESIDENCIES2021 Residency, Tokyo Art and Space, Tokyo (upcoming)2019-2020 Residency, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht (current) 2015 Residency, International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York2015 Guest Residency, Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam2015 International Fellowship for Art and Theory, Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen, Innsbruck 2014 FIND Artistic Research Fellowship, New York University (NYU), Abu Dhabi2012 Cornell Council for the Arts Grant, Cornell University, New York

COMMISSIONS2019 a.quiet.wave, for Speculative Landscapes, commissioned by NYUAD Art Gallery, Abu Dhabi 2017 Change Your Life, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

SELECTED PRESS, REVIEWS & ESSAYS2020 FAD Magazine Rachel Bennett – ‘Communicating the global climate emergency in Saudi Arabia’2020 Arts & Culture - The National Melissa Gronlund – ‘Respect Should Define the Future’2019 Canvas Magazine Saira Ansari – ‘Pink is a Fraught Color’2019 Arts & Culture - The National Alexandra Chaves – ‘Speculative Landscapes: the show looking at life in the UAE now and in the future’2019 Art Review Rahel Aima – Future Greats2018 Arts & Culture - The National Melissa Gronlund – ‘How the falcon became a symbol of regal power’2018 Artforum (January - in print), Murtaza Vali – FASTEST WITH THE MOSTEST2017 Weekend Review - Gulf News Jyoti Kalsi – ‘A Comment on Contemporary Urban Culture’2017 Art in America Rahel Aima – ‘Atlas Dubai: Consumed Culture’2016 Art Asia Pacific Katherine Volk – SOLAR FLARE, ALWAYS RED2016 Artforum Critics’ Picks, Rahel Aima – SOLAR FLARE, ALWAYS RED2016 Weekend Review - Gulf News Jyoti Kalsi – ‘Aspirations in a Material World’2016 Ibraaz L. İpek Ulusoy Akgül – ‘1497’ 2016 ArtReview Asia Vol 4, no 3 Murtaza Vali – ‘1497’2015 Frieze Kimberly Bradley – ‘Like the Deserts Miss the Real’2015 Ibraaz Kareem Estefan – ‘Accented’2015 Dazed Digital Monique Todd – ‘Breaking New Ground in the Persian Gulf’2015 Art and Signature Myriam Ben Salah (Interview) – ‘Like the Deserts Miss the Real’2015 NAFAS Murtaza Vali – ‘Searching for the Voice of Difference’ – Curatorial essay for Accented

WRITING & TEXT‘Sex’ ZIGG (ed.), 2019‘Superficial’ ZIGG with Ahmad Makia, 2018‘Masculinity: A Conversation’ with Ahmad Makia, Hypocrite Reader, Issue 90, CHRONIC, 2018‘Olfactive Gulf and Atmospheric Hegemony’ with Ahmad Makia, Future Anterior, University of Minnesota Press, Volume 13, Number 2, Winter, 2016‘OUD ODORANTS & Organoleptics’ – Contributor, The Happy Hypocrite Issue 8 ‘Fresh Hell’, 2015‘An Arm of an Ocean or Sea’ – Guest Editor, ArteEast – The Quarterly, Spring Issue, 2015 ‘Syntax Freezone’, Contributing Editor, The State, 2015

EDUCATION2013 MFA Fine Art (Studio Practice), Cornell University, New York

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raja’a khalid portfolio...projects 2013-2020 animal spirits (2020)warm eden (2020) tesla desert...

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