Head of Department: Hala Al-Ani, Möbius Design Studio
The Department of Flying Saucers is an open space that hosts ephemeral, parachute presentations by four independent initiatives: Seendosi, Public Fiction, Foundland, and Turbo. Emerging out of graphic design and based in locations ranging from Amman, Amsterdam, Cairo, Los Angeles, and Seoul, these “flying saucers” each land in Sharjah for a short time to transform the platform through workshops, lectures, parties, pop-up shops, and more. Similar to the sighting of an unidentified flying object, the exhibition is all-too-brief and rarely concrete, yet surprising, exhilarating, and provocative. Rather than offering conclusions, the format welcomes waves of “what-ifs” and stokes a sandstorm of possibility. It is an homage to all the world’s flying saucers—the anomalous, the unfamiliar, the temporal, the mysterious, the peculiar, the queer, the inexplicable, the uncanny, the funny, the obscure, the puzzling, the bewildering, the crazy, the unbelievable, the unlike-anything-else-you-have-ever-witnessed-before.
Participants:
Daham Park, Foundland Collective (Ghalia Elsrakbi & Lauren Alexander), Public Fiction (Lauren Mackler with contributions from Nicole Miller, Negar Azimi & Jared Sexton), Seendosi (with contributions from Byul.org, Ha Min Seok, Ibrahim Khamayseh, Mafi Ma3loom, Mariam AlZayani, Sunny Studio & Daham Park), Turbo (Mothanna Hussein & Saeed Abu-Jaber)
