Exploring collective experience through research-driven art
Nasser Alzayani is a Bahraini-American artist born in 1991 in Manama, Bahrain, currently living and working in Abu Dhabi. His practice focuses on documenting time and place through text, image, lost and found and cast objects. Alzayani’s work is rooted in themes of factual and fictional archaeology and explores alternative narratives of collective experience.
Alzayani has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including And The Mirrors Are Many (421, Abu Dhabi, UAE, 2023), The Memory In Our Bones (Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE, 2022), and Post Fiction: Manama (Alriwaq Art Space, Bahrain, 2022). He was also part of Art Here 2021 at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, UAE, and The Youth Takeover at the Jameel Art Centre, Dubai, UAE, in 2020. Alzayani’s work has also been featured in exhibitions in the USA, such as Kissing Through A Curtain at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Glass Triennial at the Sol Koffler Gallery in Providence, and scapes at Gelman Gallery in Providence, both in 2019.
Alzayani’s accolades include the Louvre Abu Dhabi Richard Mille Art Prize (2021), the Fundación Casa Wabi x ArtReview Residency (2017), the Villa Lena Foundation Residency (2018), and the Cultural Foundation Residency in Abu Dhabi (2021).
Alzayani holds a BArch from American University of Sharjah (2015) and an MFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design (2019).
Alzayani’s journey as an artist started when his school teachers in Bahrain recognized his talent. After earning a degree in architecture, he pursued an MFA in glass, which gave shape to his research-based practice. Alzayani’s multifaceted artwork examines the notions of memory, erasure, documentation, preservation of history, and storytelling.
Alzayani’s use of glass, particularly glass-casting, explores the poetic and metaphorical characteristics of transparency, opacity, and the fragility of material to drive a narrative forward. The artist’s personal connection to sand, as a primary material in daily life, led him to create his latest project, “Watering the distant, deserting the near.”
The installation, showcased at Louvre Abu Dhabi in 2021, features ancient-like tablets made of disintegrating damp sand, containing traces of Arabic inscriptions related to Ain Adhari, a now-dried-out freshwater spring in Bahrain. The title of the project is a phrase common to Bahrain and is mentioned in “Adhari,” a melancholic poem with political undertones written by Bahraini poet Ali Abdulla Khalifa, which addresses the spring and gives it an identity.
Overall, Alzayani’s research-driven practice and use of various media allow him to create thought-provoking and visually stunning artworks that shed light on collective experiences and the preservation of history.