SOPHIA AL-MARIA
Project Room #10. Mirror Cookie
curated by Cloé Perrone
Project Room #10. Sophia Al-Maria. Mirror Cookie is the first appointment for the 2019 Project Room cycle, which this year offers three solo exhibitions by young international artists: Sophia Al-Maria, Caroline Mesquita and Rebecca Ackroyd. These three protagonists chosen by Cloé Perrone are all artists who use sculpture within a multidisciplinary practice, expanding the definition itself. In their work sculpture, not seen as a result but as a process, becomes an instrument used to build environments where the visitor is forced to interact with projects that deal with socio-cultural phenomena like misogyny, the apocalypse and national identity.
The Qatari-American artist Sophia Al-Maria will bring Mirror Cookie to the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, an installation comprising a video - co-produced by Project Native Informant, London and Anna Lena Films - played on a screen placed on a boudoir, within a room surrounded by mirrors.
A fan of Bai Ling's blog since the early 2000s, Al-Maria was curious about a recurring motif in Bai’s posts referencing ‘cookie’. For a long time Sophia assumed that this ‘cookie’ was a person, perhaps a secret lover. But in fact Bai was writing positive, loving self- affirmations.
The installation Mirror Cookie (2018) takes a collection of Bai’s ‘cookies’ and organizes them into a disjointed monologue referencing the self-help practice of ‘mirror work’. This slowly becomes an impassioned improvisation delivered directly to camera, as if the fourth wall she is breaking is a reflection.
Featured on CURA. 29 in conversation with Lena Saraj. READ MORE
CREDITS
Courtesy of the artist and Anna Lena Films and Project Native Informant, London.