Muscat: The Sultanate of Oman, represented by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth is taking part in the 59th International Art Exhibition (BIENNALE ARTE 2022) which began in Venice on April 21 and will run till November 27. Oman is attending in this prestigious event for the first time. The Sultanate of Oman’s inaugural Pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2022, curated by Omani curator and art historian Aisha Stoby, presents a group exhibition entitled Destined Imaginaries or Destinations Imagined displaying new bodies of work by three generations of Omani contemporary artists Anwar Sonya, Hassan Meer, Budoor al Riyami, Radhika Khimji, and the late artist Raiya al Rawahi. Each artist has developed these works, an abstract timeless habitat of future relics with insights, during the extraordinary events of the past two years, and each have tackled the questions asked by the Curator of the International Exhibition The Milk of Dreams Cecilia Alemani, specifically “What would life look like without us?”
The Milk of Dreams takes its title from a book by Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) in which the Surrealist artist describes a magical world where life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the imagination. It is a world where everyone can change, be transformed, become something or someone else. The Exhibition The Milk of Dreams takes Leonora Carrington’s otherworldly creatures, along with other figures of transformation, as companions on an imaginary journey through the metamorphoses of bodies and definitions of the human.
This Exhibition is grounded in many conversations with artists held in the last few years. The questions that kept emerging from these dialogues seem to capture this moment in history when the very survival of the species is threatened, but also to sum up many other inquiries that pervade the sciences, arts, and myths of our time. How is the definition of the human changing? What constitutes life, and what differentiates plant and animal, human and non-human? What are our responsibilities towards the planet, other people, and other life forms? And what would life look like without us?
These are some of the guiding questions for this edition of the Biennale Arte, which focuses on three thematic areas in particular: the representation of bodies and their metamorphoses; the relationship between individuals and technologies; the connection between bodies and the Earth.”As visitors move through the Exhibition in the Central Pavilion and the Corderie, they encounter five smaller, historical sections: miniature constellations of artworks, found objects, and documents, clustered together to explore certain key themes. Conceived like time capsules, these shows within the show provide additional tools of investigation and introspection, weaving a web of references and echoes that link artworks of the past – including major museum loans and unconventional selections – to the pieces by contemporary artists in the surrounding space. This wide-ranging, transhistorical approach traces kinships and affinities between artistic methods and practices, even across generations, to create new layers of meaning and bridge present and past. What emerges is a historical narrative that is not built around systems of direct inheritance or conflict, but around forms of symbiosis, solidarity, and sisterhood.
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