Inside Zadie Xa's Turner-nominated work At the Sharjah Biennial
By Razmig Bedirian
First impressions of Zadie Xa’s presentation at the Sharjah Biennial are largely dependent on what stage of the work you happen to walk into.
The soothing colours of dusks and dawns dominate the room at Sharjah’s Al Hamriyah Studio, but it is the work’s sound components, emanating through hanging sea shells, that largely inform the mood.
You may walk in to wind chimes, the shush of waves rolling ashore, and the whistle of whales. Or you may be greeted with the trilling of a telephone, the frantic clicks of Morse code – and feel the anxiety of a call unanswered, the spookiness of an untraceable and undecipherable message, or the rage of a spurned one. Then there are the melodies, ringing in sustained and haunting pitches, permeating the space with a spectral essence.
But no matter when you happen to enter the space, stay long enough and the mysticism of the work will mesmerise you.
Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, and Earth Remembers Everything comprises several elements, from paintings to installation and sound. But it is perhaps best to consider it as a single holistic piece.
