Sara Binadwan is from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She received her BA in Linguistics from Prince Sultan University and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Alfaisal University in Riyadh. Her practice reflects the dichotomies, conflicts and harmonies of human behavior, she explores inner conflict, and the phenomenon of surrendering to an individual experience.
Sara Essam Binadwan
“If my life has a base that it stands upon, if it is a bowl that one fills and fills and fills and fills- then my bowl without a doubt stands upon a memory” Virginia Wolf, A Sketch of the Past.
My work explores childhood memories, culture, and identity. The narrative evolves into a series of works. It is like a map of autobiographical daily encounters and spaces. I am interested in the dichotomies of personal yet universal, the real and unreal. I believe the main themes that correspond with my practice are identity, human behavior and memories.
My research question essentially seeks to explore the fundamental relationship between space, human condition and memory. I focus on the influence of space, and home, by looking at how space is formed by human experience, memories and emotions. Through documentation everyday life and the assemblance of the imaginary my projects create a harmonious, orderly, and geometric structure which explores the sociolinguistics and the semantics of visual language. Drawing on art historical, social and personal references, I create heavily layered compositions that are precise in style. As Elif Shafak once said “We are made of stories, those that have happened, those that are still happening at this moment and time, and those that are shaped purely in our imagination through words, images, dreams and endless sense of wonder about the world around and how it works. Stories bring us together". I believe each project has its own story, which when researching history, culture, and psychology intertwine with my work, which allows the audience to reflect on their own experience.
Diverse media such as installation, photography, and sculpture, serve as platforms for my work. Exploring and experimenting with many different techniques, such as ceramics, printmaking, paper models, and textile, throughout the process of making the work allows me to contemplate, I believe it is only then that the narrative of the project itself decides the materials that best to translate and communicate it.
“What we call memory today is therefore not memory but already history. What we take to be flare-ups of memory are in face its final consumption in the flames of history. The quest for memory is the search for one's history.” Pierre Nora
Pieces of Life:
Based on my relationship with my grandparents, this project explores their personal aesthetics, interiors, and daily lives, however it also relates to culture and national identity, and global influences at large. Every single experience leaves something in us, often resulting in a ritual. While objects hold a symbolic meaning of time and place, making everyday events tangible, conjures up a feeling that will bring a stream of events that are all connected.
Bachelard defines the home as a place that contains our thoughts, dreams and memories, that there is a captivating relationship between the mind and its domestic environment. “Thanks to the house, a great many of our memories are housed, and if the house is a bit elaborate, if it has a cellar and a garret, nooks and corridors, our memories have refuges that are all the more clearly delineated. All our lives we come back to them in our daydreams.”[1]. Home is a place of many dynamics, where social situations unfold, what comes before and after or what happens in the space and the underlying story of the space is left unknown. Fragmented images are composed to create a narrative of a domestic life, while creating my own internal structure.
I explore the unspoken social norms and values embedded in a place. My aim of this project is to create an invitation for the viewer to sense the untold narratives that govern the scenes, and to connect moments of intimacy and reflection that are left open to interpretation. Ambiguities of storyline and gesture are highlighted through a fragmented imagery.
[1] Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), p.30.
Medium:
Digital CollageSize:
Variable
“The relationship between movement and attachment is instructive. What moves us, what makes us feel, is also that which holds us in place, or give us a dwelling place” Sara Ahmed
This work about home and furniture, where these objects, in a way, begin to dominate. They have a character and an attitude of their own. Through the exploration of the domesticity, movement, and stories. I began to think about how objects affect us unknowingly. The stories lie in the alteration of shape, scale and functionality. exploring the contradictions of life. These objects begin to encroach on the inhabitant, referencing spatial awareness and its impact on us. Although the objects looks robust they are fragile. The dollhouse acts as a theatrical setting for these objects, placing them on a dramatic stage. It is fictional yet realistic, fragile but robust, it is distorted yet still straightforward; “Nothing tells memories from ordinary moments. Only afterwards do they claim remembrance, on account of their scars” Chris Marker. The aim of this project is to engage the viewer in an emotional way and set the mood to dive into the house.
Medium:
InstallationSize:
110X110 CM
“This is the story of a woman marked by an image from her childhood” Carol Mavor
Fragments of My Childhood Series began during Denise De Cordova’s workshop, entitled Love Letters to a Place: Wilderness fantasies and Nature Lust.
Our early experiences in life are known to have a powerful impact throughout adulthood. Freud The Interpretation of Dreams discusses repetitive dreams as they illustrate that the historical source experience for dreaming lies in childhood experiences[1]. Fragments of My Childhood discusses the space and the landscape, tracing back to memories that are intangible, and fleeting in a surreal juxtaposition. Originating from the contemplation of self-identity, exploring the relationship between memories and identity. This is a series of conversations between myself and the landscape. By capturing tranquil moments these photographs explore the passing of time and memories in a surreal way. I relied on my feelings and intuition while overlaying them. The cultural theorist Stuart Hall talks about cultural identity as not only a matter of 'being' but of 'becoming', 'belonging as much to the future as it does to the past'.