Rand Abdul Jabbar

Overview

Rand Abdul Jabbar, Earthly Wonders, Celestial Beings, 2019 (ongoing), Glazed stoneware.

Share

Rand Abdul Jabbar (b. 1990, Baghdad) borrows from the vestiges and ephemera of history to produce reconstructions of accumulations of past events as they intersect with personal experience. Exploring her relationship to place and landscape while in a state of displacement, Abdul Jabbar contests individual and collective memory while engaging with legacies of archaeology, mythology and material culture through extensive research within archives and museum collections. Employing sculpture, writing, video and installation as primary mediums, herwork unfolds through an experiential dialogue between recollection and re-imagination, inventing a set of anchors that facilitate there-telling and adaptation of the past into a site for the reclamation of agency and affirmation of identity. Abdul Jabbar was awarded the Richard Mille Art Prize by Louvre Abu Dhabi In 2022. She received a Master of Architecture from Columbia University in 2014 where she was awarded the William Kinne Fellows Traveling Prize. Her works have been acquired by Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF), Abu Dhabi, UAE and Collection Frac Centre-Val de Loire, France.

VIEW CV

Works

...and the river washing its feet, 2019
Earthly Wonders, Celestial Beings, 2019-ongoing
Untitled (Gathering) , 2021
Act III: The Garden Scene, from the series Every Act of Recognition Alters What Survives, 2021
Untitled (Palm), from the series Tracing Origins, 2022
May It Be Remembered, 2023

Biography

Rand Abdul Jabbar (b. 1990, Baghdad, Iraq) is an artist and architect based in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

She received a Master of Architecture from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in 2014, where she was awarded the William Kinne Fellows Traveling Prize, and holds a Bachelor of Environmental Design with distinction from Dalhousie University, Canada.

Abdul Jabbar’s practice draws on the vestiges and ephemera of history to reconstruct accumulations of past events as they intersect with personal experience. Engaging with themes of displacement, place, and landscape, her work examines the relationship between individual and collective memory while referencing legacies of archaeology, mythology, and material culture. Grounded in extensive research across archives, museum collections, and historical texts, her multidisciplinary practice spans sculpture, installation, video, and writing. Through these mediums, Abdul Jabbar constructs experiential environments where recollection and re-imagination intersect, creating speculative anchors through which histories may be reinterpreted and adapted as sites for reclaiming agency and affirming identity.

Her recent exhibitions include All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group, NYU Abu Dhabi, UAE (2026); In Interludes and Transitions / "في الحِلّ والترحال", Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, JAX District, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (2026); Molding Anew at Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai (2024); In the Presence of Absence at Desert X AlUla, Saudi Arabia (2024); And the Mirrors Are Many at 421, Abu Dhabi (2023); and A Permanent Nostalgia for Departure: A Rehearsal on Legacy with Zaha Hadid at the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (2023). Earlier exhibitions include Icon. Iconic: Richard Mille Art Prize at Louvre Abu Dhabi (2022); For the Phoenix to Find Its Form in Us: On Restitution, Rehabilitation and Reparation at SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin (2021); Phantom Limb at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2019); This Land’s Unknown at the Biennale d’Architecture d’Orléans (2019); and An Instant Before the World at the Biennale d’art contemporain de Rabat (2019). In 2026, she will participate in exhibitions including In Interludes and Transitions at the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale in Riyadh and Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group at NYU Abu Dhabi.

Abdul Jabbar was awarded the Richard Mille Art Prize by Louvre Abu Dhabi in 2022. She has also participated in residencies and programmes including NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Warehouse421, Shubbak Festival London, and the Tashkeel Critical Practice Programme.

Her writing and research have been published in numerous publications including In Plain Sight: Scenes from Aridly Abundant Landscapes (Kaph Books), Monumental Shadows (Kaph Books), Architecture of Culture (Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council), Architecture of the Territory: Constructing National Narratives in the Arab World (Kaph Books), Woman Made: Great Women Designers (Phaidon), and Between East and West: A Gulf (Actar Publishers).

Her works are held in collections including the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF), UAE, and the Frac Centre-Val de Loire, France.

She lives and works in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

VIEW CV

Exhibitions