Shaikha Al Mazrou presents her large scale installation The Contingent Object at Manar Abu Dhabi 2025, A Public Light Art Exhibition.
The Contingent Object is a land installation that studies fragility and transformation in concert with its site. Composed of salt, the field is precise and perishable. It draws from the sea and is shaped by evaporation, heat, and wind. A circle, thirty metres in diameter, rests on ground embraced by mangroves. Its surface begins as water in stillness: over time, the water thins, colour deepens, crystals gather, and edges grow fine with frost. What was fluid becomes solid. What was invisible becomes luminous.
At night, a quiet ring of light along the rim and under the edge gives the salt plane a soft glow. The circle lifts its light like a low moon. The pathway offers a gentle approach that primes discovery; the arrival feels like finding a hidden star, recalling V838 Monocerotis and Najm Suhail. The work keeps a steady brightness and invites time, reflection, and rest.
Shaikha Al Mazrou is an Emirati sculptor whose practice explores the tension between form and material, and is considered one of the most dynamic and promising artists of her generation from the UAE. Her sculptural experimentations and investigations are expressions of materiality—articulations of tension and the interplay between form and content as well as an intuitive, keenly felt understanding of materials and their physical properties. She combines and evolves ideas from contemporary artistic movements similarly preoccupied with formal and material elements, from colour theory to geometric abstraction.
Al Mazrou’s current research explores synchronism, mapping the correspondence between colour and sound. Her large-scale installations often reference agricultural geometries in desert landscapes, reflecting on systems of control, transformation, and the visual imprint of human intervention.
ABOUT MANAR
Organised by the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi), this second edition of Manar Abu Dhabi brings together fifteen Emirati and international artists and collectives from ten countries, presenting twenty-three works including site-specific light sculptures, projections, and immersive installations. The exhibition unfolds across four key locations—Jubail Island, Souq Al Mina, and, for the first time, Al Ain—with dedicated trails at Al Qattara and Al Jimi Oases, highlighting Abu Dhabi’s diverse landscapes and ecosystems.
Curated by Khai Hori (Artistic Director) and co-curated by Alia Zaal Lootah, Munira Al Sayegh, and Mariam Alshehhi, The Light Compass invites audiences to engage actively with light as both guide and medium. Some artworks shine as luminous markers, while others remain still, attuned to breath, presence, and change. Inspired by traditions such as nahma—melodic chants that once encoded winds, routes, and tides—the exhibition presents light not as spectacle, but as instrument: encouraging reflection, alignment, and a shared act of orientation.
November 16, 2025
