Using art to highlight environment concerns

The Dubai Art Fair is an annual event, bringing together the best art from the Global South while the iconic Sharjah Biennale takes place every two years.

In such global expositions, trends become distilled as a wider concern among artists. The environment is one them. We see an increasing interest in India, but these shows are evidence of wider concern. No surprise, for the developing world bears the climate change brunt.

Lebanese artist Walid Raad, along with the Atlas group, produced works gesturing to a failed war plan to breed and introduce alien bird species into enemy territories, as part of ecocide. This is exactly what ecologists worry about now. On the other hand, British Palestinian Mona Hatoum, in Fossil Folly, paints oil drums bright red, dis-shapes them and cuts out plant silhouettes from them. They appear to be oilslicked, struggling to survive and yet, resilient. Meanwhile, Dala Nasser’s site specific installation comprises large dyed fabric, using the waters of the Al Wazzani river, which flows through Southern Lebanon, where her family lives. Carolina Caycedo, showing at the nearby Sharjah Art Biennale, also gestures to old tensions from new mining for the minerals required for renewable energy. Meanwhile, Pakistani artist Risham Sayeed’s small acrylic on canvass works around Lahore Smog derive from classical landscapes, steeped in human folly.

From Abanindranath Tagore’s Mother India to Picasso’s Guernica, art has the power to influence the public profoundly. The art events in Sharjah and Dubai also therefore hold out hope for nurturing the planet.