Dima Abou Zannad

Artist Statement

I define ephemeral in the two languages I speak. In an English to Arabic translation, ephemera as a noun is to mean an insect or (حشَرة تَعِيش يَوْماً وَاحدًا), literally an insect that lives for one day. Its other meaning is a short-lived thing or (سَرِيع الَزّوال، َكسَحَابَة َصيْف، ابْن يَوِْم), literally translated as noun of quick evanescence, like a summer cloud, the offspring of a day. Ephemeral as an adjective is to mean (زَاِئل، سَرِيع الَزّوال، عابر) or literally that which evanesces, quickly disappears, passes by.

In an English dictionary, ephemeral translates as lasting, living, only a day or a few days; transitory, which can also be found a noun as ephemera or ephemeras in plural or ephemeron and ephemerons and ephemera again. When you see an ephemeral insect or thing, you may speak of the may-fly. And so, ephemerality is a noun of such. And this seems to be driven out of the greek hēmera to mean day.

My practice is primarily preoccupied with the trace, especially as it presents itself within language. My process involves performing a deconstruction of language. I extract, document, and place language in its aesthetic literary form within view, reconfiguring it in the process. My practice resonates with the literary style stream of consciousness, recognized in the works of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, and Clarice Lispector. 

My most recent work is born out of an interest in the different dimensionalities that work within language. In the context of my current projects, it is form, meaning, and sound. Fundamentally, I am driven to make a mark. The content of which has lately revolved around the dynamic/static. 

الحركة اللاحركة (non-movement movement) is a project that arose out of a need to contextualize staticness in language, guided by an interpretation of Arabic grammar. The project aims to touch upon the many landscapes a stream moves through. It involves the performance lecture of a linguistic study on relative motion through the word تدفق (tadaffuq)(stream). The performance alternates between processes of sense-making and meaning-making, guided by the movements of the throat in pronunciation and the morphology of the word, intertwined with a narrative that situates the linguistic study as a metaphor for a current state of paralysis.

Here, I cannot help but touch upon the term struggle or نزاع–wherein the desire to move is negated by the force to still, and yet both agony and longing persist–making work out of the passage of time until relief.  

Biography

Dima Abou Zannad is an artist based in Sharjah, born in Beirut in 1999. Abou Zannad’s practice is primarily preoccupied with the Trace–especially as it presents itself within language. Her multidisciplinary process involves performing processes of deconstruction on language. Abou Zannad extracts, documents, and places language in its aesthetic literary form within view, reconfiguring it in the process. Her practice resonates with the literary style stream of consciousness, recognized in the works of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, and Clarice Lispector. 

Abou Zannad’s practice began with negotiating longing, subdued and suppressed. Her process involves her tracing of a thread–or trail–of ‘feminine’ language where the desperate evocation of meaning is needed and desired. She is interested in exploring how language and its aesthetic form as text–and other–reveals the human compulsion to tell and be ‘told’. 

Abou Zannad graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Sharjah, in 2021. In 2023, she founded lineعلىـline, an early career writing support service for emerging creative practitioners. Her work has been shown in Unspoken & Told at the Dubai Calligraphy Biennale (2023); Ahdud-il Bahr at The Cube in NYU Abu Dhabi (2023); Composite at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2023); In-habit in Abu Dhabi, via Gulf art collective engage101 (2022); and in While the Coffee Grounds Settle at Fathom Gallery, Georgetown in Washington DC (2022).