Daniah Al Saleh: Delicate
Exploring a fusion of traditional and new media arts
Delicate (2019) Paper, screens, projector, acrylic, wood, felt, canvas, wire, 600 x 600 cm
With text by Anna Seaman, independent arts writer.
Daniah Al Saleh has an uncanny ability to turn the ordinary into the poetic. In her own words, Al Saleh tackles notions of the unobtrusive, the ordinary and the common. By deconstructing and rearranging familiar objects and ideas, she makes the invisible visible, manifesting a space for reflection that prompts new perspectives and ways of seeing. Born and raised in Riyadh but currently based in London, where she is pursuing a Master of Fine Art in Computational Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, Al Saleh has a multimedia practice that pivots around aspects of life that are hidden in plain sight.
In 2019, she won the Ithra Art Prize for Sawtam, an audio-visual presentation based on the phonemes of the Arabic language, that was dubbed a digital windchime. Conceptually, this piece was based on the—deconstruction of the most common human act – talking – into sounds, which were each assigned a digital code or sketch that vibrated onto a screen. The interactive piece consisted of 28 screens, arranged in a 4x7 grid that was presented at Art Dubai last year.
Earlier this year, in January 2020, Al Saleh unveiled two of her most recent projects, cleverly fusing both traditional and new media. The first, Disobedient Affects comprised five canvas panels filled with grids of painted circles in various shades of white. Within each canvas, she placed a seven-inch monitor upon which an animated digital circle moved according to a computational formula. The contrast between the hand-painted and digitally-made circles created a space of tension. Inspired by a psychological study of human behaviour—An Experimental Study of Apparent Behaviour by Fritz Heider & Marianne Simmel (1944)—therewere also anthropomorphic questions at play. These circles were almost identical yet unique. They were geometric constructions; yet their conformist grids were microcosms for society and the expected social norms that communities rely on in order to function. The digital circle therefore, encapsulated the complexity of the piece. Emancipated from the rigidity of the static and perceived perfectionism of its surroundings, the digital circle was free to express itself. But to what extent was it really free? The social norms expected of any individual in a liberated society are almost always tied to the constraints of the world it functions in.
A few weeks later at 21,39 Jeddah Arts, an installation named Delicate captured the imagination of audiences. Through a network of hanging fabric sculptures, Delicate addresses inequalities of class, religion and race within our highly striated contemporary cultures. The installation uses the infinite perfection of fractal patterns found in nature to explore potential structures for harmony and positive change. Inspired by the work of Adrienne Maree Brown, who coined the term ‘emergent strategy,’ this work uses a philosophy based on observations of nature to call for radical social change asking for systems to consider the individual and the greater good rather than power and hierarchy.
By merging disciplines and exploring different mediums, Al Saleh offers new emphasis upon everyday life with the involvement of generative processes with code and data visualization. Hers is a practice to watch as it evolves.