Farah Al Qasimi: Star Machine

Flickering between darker moments of isolation and disconnection, and idyllic expressions of care, community and faith, the works in Star Machine offer an intimate inquiry into how spaces and subjectivities inflect and influence each other.

For her first solo exhibition in Australia, Al Qasimi presents Star Machine, an installation of photography and video featuring key works from 2017 to 2021.

Based between Brooklyn and Abu Dhabi, Al Qasimi understands the camera as a relational tool. Her work explores the social and political implications of our present technological condition by carefully attending to social media’s emotionality, and its reconfiguration of public and private space.

The exhibition is titled after Al Qasimi’s photograph Star Machine (2021), a self-portrait in which the artist is depicted lying on a sofa in a lounge room dramatically enveloped in the projected stars of the star machine. Having used this machine to transcend the monotony of her surroundings after two weeks of quarantine, Star Machine shows the ways in which realities are layered and imagined, and how photography is not simply about documenting and critiquing the world but is an increasingly important part of how we shape composite worlds within worlds.

Image credit - Farah Al Qasimi Star Machine 2021 (detail). Archival inkjet print, 114.3 x 152.4 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and The Third Line, Dubai. © Farah Al Qasimi, 2021. Farah Al Qasimi Marwa Braiding Marah’s Hair 2019 (detail). Archival inkjet print, 101.6 x 73.7 cm. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through The Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2022. Courtesy of the Artist; Helena Anrather, New York; and The Third Line, Dubai. © Farah Al Qasimi, 2019. Farah Al Qasimi Signature Hookah Lounge 2019 (detail). Archival inkjet print, 76.2 x 53.3 cm. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through The Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2022. Courtesy of the Artist; Helena Anrather, New York; and The Third Line, Dubai. © Farah Al Qasimi, 2019.