Alserkal Avenue work by Muhannad Shono curated by Tairone Bastien / photos

Alserkal Advisory opens Muhannad Shono’s commission in Alserkal Avenue.

IranArt : Alserkal Advisory opens Muhannad Shono’s commission in Alserkal Avenue.

Part of this commission is understanding the impacts of public art on social environments. Helmed by Alserkal Advisory in partnership with the Global Cultural Districts Network (GCDN), the Global Co-commission is an initiative to commission site-specific public art that responds to local environmental imperatives whilst documenting principles of responsible commissioning in an era of escalating climate crisis.

Across three continents, the cultural district and artist pairings are: Muhannad Shono (b.1977, Riyadh, KSA) for Alserkal Avenue, Dubai (UAE), Io Makandal (b.1987, Johannesburg, South Africa) for Victoria Yards, Johannesburg (South Africa), and Camille Chedda (b.1985, Manchester, Jamaica) for Kingston Creative, Kingston (Jamaica). Supported by UAP – Urban Art Projects, Alserkal Advisory seeks to question the full expanse of sustainability, directly addressing the climate crisis by measuring the carbon footprint of each commission and tracking its community impact.

Saudi artist Muhannad Shono's work on Alserkal Avenue is called A Forgotten Place, curated by Tairone Bastien.

Shono’s commissioned piece studies the unexpected ecological activities that have sprung up in the urban area of Dubai’s industrial centre. A Forgotten Place is a public artwork that carries water condensate from air conditioning (AC) units inside warehouses on either side of the laneway to irrigate a garden of feral plants.

It is a microcosm of the inadvertent and varied plant-life that grow largely unnoticed around Al Quoz, fed by unintended lifelines of condensate drip.

The installation draws attention to what the artist calls “AC ecologies” representing nature’s resiliency and adaptation to anthropocentric climate change.

The project sets out to think with AC ecologies, to consider the potential of an abundant yet untapped irrigation source that can be found in water-scarce parts of the world.

World-renowned, Muhannad’s work has been featured in a number of regional and international showcases, from the citywide annual festival of light Noor Riyadh in 2022, to the 2022 Venice Biennale, where he represented his country with the installation The Teaching Tree.