Arabian Transfer

“Arabian Transfer” is a photographic research that spotlights the transitory condition of six cities in the Arabian Peninsula – Abu Dhabi, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait City, Manama, Riyadh – representing them as places of passage for cultures and people. “Arabia” is historically a mythical place of the Western imagery, a place of exchange with the East, but in recent decades cities like Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha have appeared as new worlds, new global epicenters made possible by a condition of hyper-mobility of people goods, finances and images. These cities are mostly populated (and physically built) by immigrants from around the world, and today represent a living laboratory in which the local identity aspirations are confronted with Western models, and the traditions and cultures of origin of the inhabitants. These photographs were taken between 2010 and 2017 alongside a series of researches on spectacular architecture in the Persian Gulf. In this series I wanted to avoid the sublime and grotesque tone which photography tends to acquire to emphasize the most spectacular aspects of these landscapes; but I also sought to give substance to the abstract and formal imagery of the new skylines – which remain in the background as the New York captured by Dos Passos, to which the title refers. I have favored a more intimate and direct relationship with the cities and their inhabitants, by walking and spending a lot of time on the streets and in urban spaces, without concealing the difficulty of the metropolitan condition. Through everyday habits, gestures and faces, I have tried to bring out a sense of presence, showing how these cities are actual places where people live, and where, in the extreme and paradoxical form that characterizes them, it is possible to recognize the global contemporary condition to which we ourselves participate. About “Arabian Transfer” was born from a fertile exchange of ideas with Laura Gasparini, and is on show for the first time at the 2019 edition of Festival Fotografia Europea in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The series is related to and informed by researches and collaborations focused on contemporary cities and architecture, in the Gulf and elsewhere. I started photographing in the UAE for “Starchitecture”, a research on spectacular developments in Abu Dhabi, Paris and New York I undertook in 2008 with Davide Ponzini (Professor of Urban Planning, Politecnico di Milano). The research was published on the book Starchitecture. Scenes, Actors, and Spectacles in Contemporary Cities (with D. Ponzini. Turin: Allemandi 2011. 2nd edition New York: The Monacelli Press 2016). An important research collaboration has been “Learning from Gulf Cities”, an initiative led by Harvey Molotch (Professor Emeritus, Sociology and Metropolitan Studies, NYU) and Davide Ponzini, focused on the built environment, architecture, but also finance, politics, and culture of the cities of the Arabian coast of the Persian Gulf. This initiative comprised workshops and seminars in Abu Dhabi, New York, Milan; two exhibition, in New York and Abu Dhabi, and the publication of a book (Molotch H, Ponzini D (eds). The New Arab Urban. Gulf Cities of Wealth, Ambition, and Distress. New York University Press, New York 2019) with a chapter by myself. In relation to this initiative, in 2017 I have been artist in residence at the Akkasah Center for Photography at NYU Abu Dhabi, and photographed spectacular developments in six cities (Abu Dhabi, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait City, Manama, Riyadh) across five countries in the Arabian Peninsula. In Saudi Arabia I have been fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh.