A reflection and observation of a city that feels both alien and familiar, Tashkeel presents Wonder Land, the first solo exhibition by artist, writer, film curator, blogger and podcaster Hind Mezaina, marking the 12th public outcome by a Critical Practice Programme (CPP) practitioner since its inception in 2014.
The exhibition is an expression of Mezaina's unfulfilled appetite for overseas travel during a global pandemic, where she found herself in Dubai during lockdown for the longest time in many years, gaining a fresh sense of her city.
In Wonder Land, the artist aims to remove herself from the often-stifling familiarity by adopting an almost third-person objectivity towards the place she calls home. Moulded by the extraordinary consequences of the pandemic and its social, economic and industrial impact on the city of Dubai, her intentional gaze reveals the unnoticed elements of the urban fabric, indicative of an environment in flux, from the abandoned remnants of constant progress to the reclamatory force of nature over human endeavour.
Amid the unnerving emptiness, cosmetic distractions and constructed artifices stand hollow like an abandoned fairground, devoid of meaning as the once unrelenting momentum of ambition slows to a halt.
Wonder Land is currently on show at Tashkeel until 6 July, 2021.