Window to The City Exhibition, Katara Arts Center, November 2012.
Past Exhibitions
Window to The City, Katara Arts Center (KAC), Doha, Qatar
7 - 13 November, 2012
The Katara Arts Center selected a number of artists to intervene weekly on the gallery windows as large sketchbooks reflecting their view on the city of Doha collectively creating an urban language. The medium considers the ephemeral performative aspect of making and the use of black and white as a raw and unfinished scene, bringing it closer to the idea of a city under construction. Viewers were invited to document or simply witness these traces emerge. On November 7th, Nikki Newman and fellow artists created works on the theme of a city under construction.
Nikki Newman's work focussed on the condition of workers who create cities such as Doha. The working title of her piece was "A Love Poem Transposed," using a William Butler Yeats poem to portray the thoughts of a Doha construction worker, his dreams, desires and what he may have left behind.
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
William Butler Yeats
Window to The City, Katara Arts Center, Doha. (10 mins)