Lateefa Bint Maktoum is a painter and photographer, who is well-known for her innovative exploration of digital montage. She is also the founder and director of Dubai-based contemporary arts organisation, Tashkeel, which supports local artists and the local art scene in myriad ways.
Bint Maktoum’s work is mainly focused on the story of the UAE and it’s changing landscape. It has been exhibited in prestigious local and international exhibitions, and is part of important private collections in the UAE and abroad. But, her first solo show, New Chapter, marks the beginning of a new chapter in her personal and professional journey.
The exhibition features a series of photographic works that express her feelings and emotions about becoming a wife and mother. Unlike her previous work, the images are self-portraits, with her son and husband also appearing in the pictures; and most of the photographs are taken inside her home, offering a rare glimpse of her inner world.
Bint Maktoum has carefully staged each photograph, paying attention to details such as tailoring her dresses to match the background, or to convey a certain mood; sewing on real flowers on a dress to signify the fragility of relationships and of life; and including deeply personal symbols in her compositions, such as photographs of her father, late Shaikh Maktoum Bin Rashid Al Maktoum with her siblings, and her paternal grandfather Shaikh Rashid Bin Saeed’s house in Shindagha.
The intimate images speak about sustaining one’s identity while building new relationships and a new family, the pure and eternal bond between mother and child, and the joys, fears and struggles of motherhood, and of life itself. They tell a personal story, but one that everyone, especially women can relate to.
The artist has also recreated one of the images, featuring several clocks suspended in a room, as an installation in the gallery, inviting viewers to quite literally experience her world, while offering them a stage to tell their own story.
Weekend Review spoke to the artist about the emotions and thought process behind this show. Excerpts:
Why did you decide to share this very personal journey with the world?
My work is always about the things that are affecting me at that moment, and I wanted to do this because I felt the need to express the emotions of my experiences of the past few years — getting married, going through pregnancy and the transition to motherhood. I wanted to do this for myself with complete honesty, so I felt it was important for me and my family to be in the pictures. While making the images, I was not thinking about an audience, but I hope that sharing this journey which is beautiful, but full of physical, mental and emotional struggles will help other women who are going through the same struggles.
What was the creative process behind these images?
I started by making some sketches, about a year after my son was born, and took another year to develop the images based on those sketches. Taking pictures indoors for the first time was like discovering my inner self, and reliving the multitude of emotions was such an intense process that it almost felt like giving birth again. The first image in the series, The Beginning, features my wedding dress. I changed the exit sign on a door in the background to ‘Stage Door’ to set the stage for the story to unfold. Thereafter, every composition is like a performance, recreating the changes and new experiences that have come into my life since my wedding day, and revealing moments of rediscovering the self within this new identity and evolving role.
What is the idea behind recreating the image titled Patience as an installation in the gallery?
In this image, I photographed myself holding a big clock and standing in a room filled with clocks. The reference to time expresses the struggle of a mother-to-be as she waits for the arrival of her baby. She goes through physical and emotional changes, her mind is full of fears, yet there is so much beauty in the anticipation. I matched my dress with the wallpaper to convey the woman’s touch in her house, and how her home becomes an important part of her identity. I created the installation so that visitors can walk in bringing their own history, and relate to my work in their own way. The clocks in the installation are showing the current time because patience is not about something in the past or the future. You need patience in the present moment to grow and evolve.
What are the emotions you want to express in the two outdoor photographs, Transition and Clarity?
In Transition, I photographed myself in a circular pit, holding my baby, while also gripping a rope made of flowers. I wanted to express the feeling of loneliness when you are learning how to become a mother, knowing that your baby is totally dependent on you. The flowers on the rope and on my dress, allude to the mother’s fragile state of mind, but the shape of the pool signifies a circle of comfort. This image speaks about finding the right balance at a difficult time. In Clarity you see me wading in a stream flowing through a garden full of flowers. This is about finding those moments of clarity amidst the struggle of motherhood, and of life itself.
What is the significance of the personal and historic symbols in the works titled, Connection and Family?
Connection is about the connection between mother and child, and between the past, the present and the future. It shows me reading to my son a book about the UAE, surrounded by photographs of my father, my maternal grandfather, and a model of my grandfather’s house in Shindagha. I also placed a piece of oudh on the table as an important symbol of our tradition. The many horses in this composition speak about our family’s love for horses, which I can already see in my son. For the family portrait with my son and husband in Family I created the setting by merging parts of my grandfather’s house in Shindagha with my home. The montage also includes images of old Dubai, the Burj Khalifa, a skyline full of cranes, an Arabian horse, and an artificial lake that my father had thoughtfully created for the migratory birds that pass through our land. Both these compositions are about building new relationships and constructing a new family that remains connected with the past and rooted in tradition, but embraces the present, and looks towards the future with optimism, and an open mind.
New Chapter will run at Tashkeel, Nad Al Sheba until February 23.
