The oasis of dreams

There is a wind blowing through the palm trees and bringing with it voices, gestures, images. It does not come from far away, but from within. It is the deep breath of Seas are sweet, fish tears are salty, the first institutional exhibition by Mohammad Alfaraj at the Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai. A title that is already poetry, or perhaps an ecological parable. Born in Al-Ahsa, in the heart of Saudi Arabia, Alfaraj returns to his homeland not to tell it realistically, but to evoke it. The exhibition moves like a visual and sound poem: photographs, videos, found objects, organic materials and site-specific installations build a sensitive landscape, in which hands become symbols, fallen fruit speaks, birds observe. The stories are not linear. They nest in the margins, between agricultural memory and environmental transformation, between tradition and trauma. Alfaraj does not explain: he suggests. His works - also scattered outdoors, in the gardens of the centre - ask for time, listening, willingness to get lost. As in oases, water is not immediately visible, but it is there. And it is sweet. Imagination is the vital element that binds everything. A force that resists concrete, that protects, that invents new alliances between human and non-human beings. Alfaraj composes a narrative ecology where the boundaries are blurred: art does not represent, but summons. The exhibition is not alone. It is accompanied by a program of meetings and workshops open to families and children, in a gesture of restitution and sharing. After all, the artist - a mechanical engineer by training, but an active presence on the international scene for years - works right there where science, history and imagination meet.