Ai Weiwei’s Laundromat installation, currently on view at Doha’s Fire Station Art Gallery, displays clothing and belongings abandoned by Syrian and other refugees at a makeshift camp near the village of Idomeni on the Greek-Macedonian border.
I was surprised to see a politically and socially-relevant exhibition of this kind in Doha as it invariably raises the question of how regional actors ought to respond to the plight of displaced people on their doorstep. The content of this exhibition is similarly unsettling. We see clothing in color, freshly washed and pressed. The shades of muddy brown, so often associated with poverty, aren’t visible here. The items on display also tell us a little bit about the their former owners, who we quickly realize were individuals of taste and means.
I was surprised to see a politically and socially-relevant exhibition of this kind in Doha as it invariably raises the question of how regional actors ought to respond to the plight of displaced people on their doorstep. The content of this exhibition is similarly unsettling. We see clothing in color, freshly washed and pressed. The shades of muddy brown, so often associated with poverty, aren’t visible here. The items on display also tell us a little bit about the their former owners, who we quickly realize were individuals of taste and means.
The arrangement of the display is equally striking. Walking between the rails of clothes, one is beset by claustrophobia. If you have visited the Holocaust memorial in Berlin and walked between its blocks, you may have experienced a similar urge to observe from the outside rather than to explore from within. The floor, in turn, is tiled by a news feed of collected articles about refugee crises past and present. Symbolically, one has to walk over these to observe the refugees' possessions in any detail. Finally, one arrives at the countless rows of shoes. It is hard to ignore the lone running shoe or the glossy pink pair of children’s rain boots.
In a country where there are seemingly more malls than people, with countless empty shops and thousands of rails of ignored clothing, this exhibition is of added poignancy. Easily, one of the highlights of my year thus far in Doha, I would strongly recommend that you pay a visit to this installation.
Laundromat is on display at the Fire Station Artist in Residence Garage Gallery until 1 June 2018.
In a country where there are seemingly more malls than people, with countless empty shops and thousands of rails of ignored clothing, this exhibition is of added poignancy. Easily, one of the highlights of my year thus far in Doha, I would strongly recommend that you pay a visit to this installation.
Laundromat is on display at the Fire Station Artist in Residence Garage Gallery until 1 June 2018.
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