Ahmed Al Faresi: We Are But One Thread

Showcase Gallery presents “We Are But One Thread“, a solo show by the artist Ahmed Al Faresi. This exhibition is based on a fictional historical account in which a Native American tribe is culturally fused with a tribe of Arab nomads. The outcome is a shamanistic culturally fused tribal society. Shamanism is a system for psychic, emotional, and spiritual healing and for exploration, discovery, and knowledge gathered about non-material worlds and states of mind. Each artwork is intended to resemble a relic from this fictional ancient society with deep shamanistic meanings. The artwork engages the viewer at a spiritual level to explore the meaning of shamanism from the perspective of an Arab artist.

Academic by nature, Ahmed’s works refer to a wide number of disciplines including science, technology, history, mythology and philosophy. The physiography of his work hints at his Emirati background but the over arching theme within his oeuvre is that of universality within the greater ancient cultural foundations of the earth; our sphere of being.

To see Ahmed’s work is to gain knowledge from, and to engage with. His work has the presence of a relic from the past, largely due to the emphasis of importance he places on antiquity, a cornerstone and launching point for contemporaneity’s social and cultural understanding and even assertion. Ahmed’s exhibition is a celebration of ethnologic conscious and a challenge to scientific anthropology.