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ALIA MALI (UK) Cairo Binnale 13th 2019
In a found location in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, Natalia Mali made three performances
for camera A Solution, Obliterating Ablution, and The Seven Circles. Performed in 2019,
Mali invents ritual as an embodiment of herself as a woman. In A Solution, we watch her
in a derelict abandoned room, placing a ladder next to a piano against the wall, which she
climbs on top of and then lies down in solitude. This is followed by Obliterating Ablution,
in which she sits in the same room, with its broken chandelier, pouring water over her hair
into a bucket. And then in The Seven Circles, she sifts flour onto the floor around where she
has been sitting between the piano and chandelier. She does it seven times, making seven
circles around her.
In an artistic statement, written around 2014, she spoke of how:
“Contemporary art often represents itself as a zone in which freedom of experimentation, in-
novation and self-fulfilment is the acceptable norm. As an artist I have continually returned
to the fundamental ideas of cultural identity, sexuality, semiology, linguistics and feminism,
as well as the position and interpretation of women and their perception of themselves in
contemporary society, both in the developed world and today’s expanding economies.”
In some respects, Mali’s work continues to explore these issues. But Mali’s current work
also distinguishes itself from her earlier work. It has become more powerful in its singular
focus on the everyday. Sometimes, her singular action is repeated. Together, the perfor-
mances extend the spontaneity of everyday gestures, almost to the point of an understated
absurdity. Shot in one take without voice, the video performances are a study in observation:
slow-moving, measured, controlled. Accompanying the videos, is sound that draws upon
traditional African music Kalimba, festive Japanese drum bit Taiko and an Indian Raga im-
provisation.
There is a theatricality and artifice about the performances. Through this style of their pres-
entation, Mali is able to focuses on the deliberate movement of the figure of the woman,
continuing her exploration of the everyday life of women. It is as if the act of lying on a
piano, she is submitting herself to solitude or performing the act of ablution, as if ritualistic
cleansing herself or lastly, performing a ritual of walking around a circle seven times, as if
invoking the sacred.
Charles Merewether 2019
202
In a found location in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, Natalia Mali made three performances
for camera A Solution, Obliterating Ablution, and The Seven Circles. Performed in 2019,
Mali invents ritual as an embodiment of herself as a woman. In A Solution, we watch her
in a derelict abandoned room, placing a ladder next to a piano against the wall, which she
climbs on top of and then lies down in solitude. This is followed by Obliterating Ablution,
in which she sits in the same room, with its broken chandelier, pouring water over her hair
into a bucket. And then in The Seven Circles, she sifts flour onto the floor around where she
has been sitting between the piano and chandelier. She does it seven times, making seven
circles around her.
In an artistic statement, written around 2014, she spoke of how:
“Contemporary art often represents itself as a zone in which freedom of experimentation, in-
novation and self-fulfilment is the acceptable norm. As an artist I have continually returned
to the fundamental ideas of cultural identity, sexuality, semiology, linguistics and feminism,
as well as the position and interpretation of women and their perception of themselves in
contemporary society, both in the developed world and today’s expanding economies.”
In some respects, Mali’s work continues to explore these issues. But Mali’s current work
also distinguishes itself from her earlier work. It has become more powerful in its singular
focus on the everyday. Sometimes, her singular action is repeated. Together, the perfor-
mances extend the spontaneity of everyday gestures, almost to the point of an understated
absurdity. Shot in one take without voice, the video performances are a study in observation:
slow-moving, measured, controlled. Accompanying the videos, is sound that draws upon
traditional African music Kalimba, festive Japanese drum bit Taiko and an Indian Raga im-
provisation.
There is a theatricality and artifice about the performances. Through this style of their pres-
entation, Mali is able to focuses on the deliberate movement of the figure of the woman,
continuing her exploration of the everyday life of women. It is as if the act of lying on a
piano, she is submitting herself to solitude or performing the act of ablution, as if ritualistic
cleansing herself or lastly, performing a ritual of walking around a circle seven times, as if
invoking the sacred.
Charles Merewether 2019
202
