Farah Al Qasimi

Um Al Naar (Mother of Fire in English) is Farah Al Qasimi’s first feature-length film. Set in the United Arab Emirates and inspired by the genre of horror-comedy, the film playfully engages with colonial legacies and gendered expressions of identity in the Emirates, where the artist grew up. Lasting just over forty minutes, Um Al Naar is delivered as an episode of a fictional reality TV show starring a jinn (a spirit able to possess humans in the mythology of the Arab world) called Um Al Naar. Alongside an interview with the jinn, the film combines footage shot in the Emirates, found videos of exorcisms and first-hand accounts of people’s encounters with jinns.

Interviewed in the format of a reality TV show confessional, Um Al Naar tells her story: from the Portuguese and British imperialist occupation of the region to modern cultural projects of nation-building, women’s pastimes and her love for dance, she offers a critical perspective on the colonial history and gender divides in the Emirates. An uncanny character embodied in multicoloured floral draperies, Um Al Naar quickly reveals herself to be an amusing and relatable personality who deplores losing her ancient powers as people’s belief in her wanes over the years. Misunderstood as a malevolent being, she discloses her true intention in possessing others: enabling the release of people’s inner vitality. The film ends on an upbeat note celebrating bodily expression through rhythmic music and women’s singing, while Um al Naar and other protagonists, mainly women, dance through the night.

Through this film, Al Qasimi surfaces popular beliefs and oral histories of the Emirates that have personal resonance to her. Um Al Naar is from Ras al-Khaimah, where the artist has lived, near Jazirat al Hamra, a village believed to be haunted. ‘I am Um Al Naar,’ Al Qasimi explained (conversation with Tate curators Nabila Abdel Nabi and Carine Harmand, 29 June 2020), thereby indicating that inviting the viewer to see the world through Um Al Naar’s eyes also means seeing it through her own eyes. By looking at the way exorcism practices are gendered in the Emirates, Um Al Naar translates Al Qasimi’s interest in exploring gender dynamics in the Gulf region and delves into how these traditional spiritual practices relate to colonial legacies and ideas of modernity and progress.

With exorcism being illegal in the United Arab Emirates, Al Qasimi searched the internet to find information on contemporary takes on the practice. Footage found on social media platforms such as Youtube, Instagram and Vine reflects the way in which the digital has infused spiritual practices. For Al Qasimi it evidences the modern way of sharing cultural traditions and mirrors how oral history is kept alive by younger generations.

Um Al Naar is shot in the characteristic aesthetic of Al Qasimi’s photographic work. A number of her photographs in Tate’s collection depict scenes in the homes of her relatives in the Emirates (Tate P82690–P82694) and certain scenes of Um Al Naar are set in some of these homes, in line with the film’s environment of uncanniness, bright colours and showy decorations. Some of Al Qasimi’s relatives also feature in the film. The artist composed the music for the film herself.    Al Qasimi has shown her photographs and film against a backdrop of images printed as vinyl wallpaper and this practice is a feature of some of her other work. The video can be projected or shown on a monitor.

It exists in an edition of three, Tate’s copy being the third in the edition. The first is in the collection of Arsenal Contemporary Art, Toronto, and the second is in the collection of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.

Further reading
Marigold Warner, ‘Exploring identity and diplomacy in a horror-comedy set in the UAE’, British Journal of Photography, 16 October 2019, https://www.bjp-online.com/2019/10/farah-al-qasimi-arrival/ , accessed 27 August 2020.
Ann Binlot, ‘Photographer Farah Al Qasimi channels her insider-outsider experiences into lyrical, anti-imperialist art’, Document Journal, 21 November 2019, https://www.documentjournal.com/2019/11/photographer-farah-al-qasimi-channels-her-insider-outsider-experiences-into-lyrical-anti-imperialist-art/ ,accessed 27 August 2020.

Carine Harmand
August 2020