Positive Pathways (+)

About

The exhibition at Mitchell-Innes & Nash expands upon GCC’s 2016 project at the most recent Berlin Biennale, a sculptural installation of a woman and child. The woman is performing a Quantum Touch exercise, a non-contact touch therapy that became popular in the West in the late 1990s, on a boy as they stand on sand surrounded by a running track. The work, from where the exhibition borrows its title Positive Pathways (+), focuses on the ways that the positive energy movement and body healing practitioners have become co-opted by governments in the region – such as the creation of new ministerial positions like the UAE’s Ministry of Happiness, and the emergence of life coaches and Feng Shui consultants employed by hereditary leaders. Also on view will be a set of sculptural reliefs created using Thermoforming, a commonly used industrial process where thermoplastic sheets are heated and formed on a mold. The reliefs are based on 3D renderings of stills taken from YouTube videos and images found online of regional practitioners promoting the positive energy movement. Ranging from politicians to social media celebrities to TV clerics, these individuals utilize the Positive Energy attitude as a base for state policy. Referring to the erasure and creation of cultural myths, these reliefs create narratives of the present, a mechanism of both nation building and the politics of cultural extinction and creation.

In conjunction with the exhibition, an off-site screening of video works by the collective at Anthology Film Archives will occur on October 15, 2016 followed by a Q&A with all eight collective members.

Collective members:
Nanu Al-Hamad (b. 1987)
Khalid Al Gharaballi (b. 1981)
Abdullah Al-Mutairi (b. 1990)
Fatima Al Qadiri (b. 1981)
Monira Al Qadiri (b. 1983)
Aziz Al Qatami (b. 1979)
Barrak Alzaid (b. 1985)
Amal Khalaf (b. 1982)