Ground recce and rereading bestsellers sparked lightbulb moment for exhibition on Abu Dhabi isle
▶ Artist shares inspiration behind 10 installations on Lulu Island as part of Manar festival, writes Maan Jalal
Technology and light are turning Lulu Island into a playground of poetry and connection. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s interactive exhibition Translation Island has transformed the isle in the UAE capital as part of Manar Abu Dhabi.
The city-wide event is an outdoor exhibition of light installations. Local, regional and international artists have been commissioned to create more than 35 site-specific sculptures, projections and immersive artworks.
The Mexican-Canadian artist took the theme of the festival, Grounding Light, and created 10 audiovisual artworks, six of which he’s unveiling for the first time.
“Lulu Island is a paradise for contemporary art,” Lozano-Hemmer tells The National. “The exhibition emerges from the idea of moving through this environment where visitors can find themselves in relation to each other. Culturally and politically, the exhibition is a conceptual ‘ode to translation’, meaning from one language into another as well as the relocation of the subject in space.”
Remarking on the proximity of the island to downtown Abu Dhabi, the artist says he was amazed at how sweeping dunes, a 300-metre-long freshwater lake, desert flora and 10km of pristine beaches lie merely 200 metres away. This contrast, he says, adds to the themes he explores in the exhibition.
After being commissioned by the Department for Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi for the festival, Lozano-Hemmer approached the project with the idea of creating work that spoke to the environment through different facets.
“I wanted to scout the island, learn as much as possible about it and plan an exhibition that would be impactful and meaningful while integrating the natural setting,” he says.
“I wanted to connect people with their environment.”
Through his research, Lozano-Hemmer learnt that Lulu Island was the master plan of the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. In 1981, Niemeyer worked on a proposal for the 424-hectare reclaimed island, which included plans for hotels, residences and an elevated monorail.
This prompted Lozano-Hemmer to think about man-made destinations within the context of nature.
“Seeing Lulu Island from this new angle I reread Morel’s Invention,” he says.
“In the novel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, the protagonist is stranded on a deserted island that is actually inhabited by recorded memories of past visitors. This is an early description of what we know now as augmented reality.”
Lozano-Hemmer takes this idea of translating the environment to fit into humanity’s needs – and vice versa – and then again translates it to his light and audio installations on the island.
“There is a definite sense of drama that connects all the artworks,” he says.
“The cohesive theme was the translation of one reality into another. Usually, something invisible was materialised so that it could be experienced directly.” This is clearly demonstrated in the installation titled Collider, where visitors see the live impact of cosmic rays on the atmosphere as they create a glowing cascade or a large curtain of light.
Meanwhile, his project Thermal Drift has a more interactive element where the dissipation of heat is projected onto a screen between the bodies of participants, the environment and even the city.
In the piece Translation Lake, Lozano-Hemmer takes the experimental and complex novel Finnegans Wake by Irish writer James Joyce and uses artificial intelligence to translate the text into 24 languages spoken in the UAE, including Arabic, Urdu and Hindi. These can be heard while visitors sit on small abras, or boats, that gently float through Lulu Island’s central lake. The voice is in sync with illuminated glimmering white lights.
The effect of all these works of light sparks curiosity before mesmerising viewers. Aside from being able to interact with the pieces in physical space and real-time, the conceptual ideas of each speak to the theme of Manar Abu Dhabi and also touch on the layers of translation that Lozano-Hemmer is interested in.
“At a very depressing time of global polarisation and climate change, I want to offer creative experiences that are incomplete and out of control,” he says.
“By this, I mean that works of art don’t exist without participation. The public is an integral part of the artwork, they are not only passive consumers.”
Lozano-Hemmer says that visitors to the exhibition can self-represent in any way they see fit while interacting with the work – through their voice, movements and choices.
He hopes these interactions between the viewer, art and environment can create connections between people from different backgrounds and give them more agency and ownership of their cities. This, Lozano-Hemmer believes, is one of the most powerful characteristics of public art. Work that is free to view and interact with while also shaping the urban landscape, creating unique spaces of shared authentic experiences.
“We are living in a crisis of urban representation,” he says. “The contemporary, globalised city no longer represents its citizens – it represents capital.”
He says many new buildings popping up around the world are “very similar” to each other, as developers attempt to optimise costs and find the “same homogeneous global solutions”.
Lozano-Hemmer’s work on Lulu Island presents an opportunity for both the capital’s communities and visitors to understand and experience how public art isn’t simply a decorative element of the city. Instead, it’s an accessible way to shift where and how we spend time outside of our personal spaces and also combat the idea of public spaces encouraging us to constantly consume as opposed to engage or experience.
“Public art presents an interruption of this control and consumption – people spend time creating community around a shared experience,” he says. “Public art presents an opportunity for people to come together, with each other and their city.”
I wanted an exhibition that would be impactful and meaningful ... to connect people with their environment RAFAEL LOZANO-HEMMER Artist