Multidisciplinary artist Mohammad Alfaraj lives and works from the oasis of Al Ahsa, where he develops a practice that combines writing, video, photography, drawing and sculpture.
Steeped in the oral traditions of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Alfaraj draws inspiration from social practices, urban or rural architectures, and stories of everyday life to explore the relationships between humans and nature. His works often take the form of poetic fables that question contemporary ecological, social and cultural issues.
The exhibition I'd rather be a dragonfly than a lion brings together a set of previously unreleased video works within an installation composed of objects, photographs and drawings. Nourished by the collective imaginaries of his native country, his animated videos, made using the stop motion technique, give form to poetic narratives written and performed by the artist himself.
Working with a deliberately economical approach, Mohammad Alfaraj carries out the entire creative process himself: writing, shaping the characters and sets, filming and animation. Rooted in the cultural context of Al-Ahsa, these stories blend imagination, collective memory and our relationship to the living world, finding a universal echo well beyond their context of origin.