Sawsan Al Bahar at Maraya Art Centre

Dubai-based Syrian artist Sawsan Al Bahar presents a large-scale, multimedia installation with 330 printed sheets representing songs inherited from her father over the past 33 years, giving her a sense of belonging and sensibility. The songs remain an obscure and highly personal collection; the patterns only reveal visual poetry and music, thereby immortalizing the ephemerality of music and paying tribute to the power of individual and collective memory.

By taking a scalpel to the lyrics and words that make up these songs, Al Bahar dissects how we usually experience music and song; through phrases that linger, through moments of melody, through sequence, form and repetition.