Salmah Almansoori reflected on her practice as a form of documenting the emotional and physical transformation of the UAE’s landscapes, particularly the overlooked environments and memories connected to her hometown of Ghayathi in Aldhafra. Through painting, handmade paper, installation, photography, and collected materials, she explored how places absorb personal histories and how rapidly changing environments can lead to both preservation and erasure.
Her work focused on the relationship between memory and materiality, often incorporating fragments, textures, and found objects that carry traces of lived experience. Rather than creating direct representations of locations, Almansoori approached landscapes as emotional archives shaped by nostalgia, loss, belonging, and transformation. She described her process as deeply tied to observation and collecting, preserving moments and details that may otherwise disappear over time.
The conversation also highlighted her interest in documenting quieter and less represented narratives within the UAE, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a connection to roots and identity amidst constant urban and cultural change. Through layered and intuitive processes, her work positioned memory not as something fixed, but as something continuously reshaped through time, experience, and environment.
