A series of three works consisting of woven strips made of hemp rope, each affixed by a golden palm tree partially wrapped with black string, Suspended Palm is intercepted with porcelain installs, containing printed fragments from collected pages of religious manuals instructing women on how to conduct themselves in public and private spheres. Written by men advocating a fundamentalist doctrine, these manuals – near extinct now – were prevalent during the artist’s upbringing in Saudi Arabia. While the country undergoes reforms, the artist here attempts to capture a collective trauma afflicting the women of her generation. Titled Just Paper, these delicate porcelain insertions convey the fragility of the words within their folds and the power of language as an artefact of recent history.

The Suspended Palm series takes cues from two overlapping narratives experienced by AlDowayan, underpinned by a common theme of displacement and a moment of transition. The palm trees take as a point of departure a poem recited by the Umayyad Emir of Córdoba Abd al-Rahman I, who upon entering Granada, saw a lone palm tree before the Rusafa Palace: ‘O palm, you stand alone, like me so far from home..’ Drawing parallels between the Emir’s feelings of isolation and hers during unprecedented changes in her country, the artist seeks to render immortal a moment in history, both ancient and recent.