In the summer of 2019 I was approached by the organisers of Art Basel Inside to imagine a series of performances and installations for a 3 day programme in Abu Dhabi. During 5 months, with a team of collaborators we researched, designed and planned a day-long immersive walk in the Al Wathba desert near Abu Dhabi on a massive opera-like scale. Our opening event would have been followed by two more days hosted by different teams of curators and artists. Art Basel Inside was a branch of Art Basel offering immersive art-related experiences around the world to a few privileged individuals. Due to financial decisions of parent company MCH this branch and our project got cancelled.
However, I was deeply touched by the trips and encounters I’ve made during the preparations of this project. Like the Amazon rainforest or the high sea, the desert is overpowering and disorienting. It amplifies perceptions and opens up creative indeterminacies. The Al Wathba desert collapses the deep past and the far future into a strange present: from prehistoric underwater creatures turned into fossil fuels, to a future world turned into a desert - from the air conditioned capsules of the rich, to the baking living-containers of bonded labourers, the UAE reflects and crystallises many pressing questions of our time.