Rendering the Forms of Displacement

Abstract

Kuwaiti sculptor Sami Mohammed in his reflective show ‘Displacement’ moves from creating monochrome bronze sculptures that display specific regional catastrophes, toward offering thirty multi-hued contemporary paintings based on the notion of displacement in a global setting. He images the effects of globalization. Sami transitions his work to this “polyglot” culture in which his consciousness links the dissimilarities to synthesize the immigrant, the exile, the tourist, and the urban wanderer - the dominant figures of contemporary culture. He reflects on aspects such as “altermodernity,” constituting a “translation-oriented” modernity. His intervention, in kaleidoscopic styles and techniques, defines fragments of “medium-space-time.” He maps these as he wanders through continents and locations while he positions himself in translatable moving and affected environments. The global stage turns into a platform for an interchange of multitude portrayals of the world, in which Sami’s translation of ideas and imageries play a crucial role in dialogue that will give rise to a new shared intelligibility.