Sama Alshaibi, Jarasun Yaqraʿ li l Mawt (Death knell) from Silsila series, 2010, Diasec Print, 166 x 250 cm
Through the salt flats, sand dunes, and crystal lakes of the Middle East, this artist brought migration, environment, and the ever-looming water crisis to light.
It’s an empty landscape, blindingly, unbearably white. A figure in stark black, holding a red handkerchief, lies - sleeping or dead - in the emptiness. In the distance, over rolling hills only a few shades darker than the sands, a single black bird flies as if moving out of frame. You can’t tell where it is, or when. If it’s from a historical archive or a camping trip gone awry. If the white sand dunes are in the Sahara, or the Negev, or Rub' Al Khali in Oman, where this particular image was shot.
