On Foraging (From the Field)
Digital Photography, Writing
2022

On Foraging: Food Knowledge and Environmental Imaginaries in the UAE’s Landscape is a 200-page book that was published alongside the large-scale group exhibition of the same title that was first presented at the UAE Pavilion during Expo 2020. A second edition of the book, which includes additional research and new commissions, was published for the second iteration of the exhibition which opened for wider public viewing at 421 in Abu Dhabi from October 9 to December 31, 2022. Presenting reserves of cultural and agricultural knowledge that have been passed down through generations and that continues until today, the exhibition reveals the work that goes into unearthing the landscape through a confluence of personal and collective narratives, and ultimately calls for historical food knowledge to be brought forward, reexamined, and rediscovered.
(text from 421’s official website)
Exhibited at 421, Abu Dhabi
On Foraging: Food Knowledge and Environmental Imaginaries in the UAE’s Landscape
9 October - 31 December 2022

First edition book released in early 2022.
Second Edition released 2022 October









From the Field takes visual form through photographs featured on the covers of both printed editions, and in writing through a total of five intermissions within On Foraging. Dispersed throughout the book, these short pieces of writing act as glimpses into the research process: searching, finding, visiting, bonding, smelling, seeing, connecting, learning. Each intermission focuses on a single farm at a time, located across the Emirates of Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Fujairah, and Ras Al Khaimah.


Guess who cried at the show opening and posed with the printed book as though it was a PhD degree? Me. I did. No judgement, please and thank you.

I do not have any of those photos, which saves me a whole lot of cringe. But if you do, send them to me. Quietly.

I may or may not ask you to delete them.



(Above) Image courtesy of 421, Abu Dhabi.
(Below) Image courtesy of Esquire Middle East.