We are pleased to announce our participation in Art Basel Qatar, from 5 – 7 February, booth M206, we will be dedicating our booth to a solo presentation of Nida Sinnokrot.

Conceptual artist and educator Nida Sinnokrot’s will present his totemic sculptures Water Witnesses at the inaugural edition of Art Basel Qatar. These works were shown as part of Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry.

Situated throughout the space, the Water Witness create moments of resonance and reflection. These objects fuse industrial water infrastructure with traditional clay vessels and are inspired by Canaanite goddess sculptures and Palestinian amulets from the collection of Dr. Tawfiq Canaan. Born in 1882 in Bay Jala, he was a physician, an author, an advocate for the Palestinian cause who documented Palestinian superstition and folklore. He collected, amongst many other things, myths and beliefs that are primarily located surrounding Jerusalem, Ramallah and Bethlehem during the first part of the Twentieth Century, which slowly expanded northwards over the years. In 1922 he published the essay “Haunted Springs and Water Demons in Palestine”, which aims at locating and reflecting upon 125 haunted springs, wadis (En, Ein, Ayn, Ain), wells and cisterns (birs) in Historic Palestine whereby many sites were located in areas destroyed, abandoned or depopulated from 1948 onwards. Evoking ancient practices of guardianship, resource stewardship, and the equilibrium between myth and ecology, they challenge colonial hierarchies of resource control, it’s policies of land theft, and practices of expulsion and destruction.