

Saboura in process, 2024 Marrakech - Photo: Joseph Ouechen
Addawhiyat , Installation, rammed earth, 13 x 3 x 2,5 m / 2024
Park of Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar
DESERT OF THE NORTH
This work is inspired by the artists native North Africa and the landscape of the desert that is central to the history of the rergion. "The Desert of the North" speaks to both tradition and transformation. Copper, a metal treasured across civilizations for its conductivity and malleability, here becomes a structural element, sixteen metres of thread holding aloft cascades of wool in a delicate equilibrium. This marriage of materials creates a dialogue between permanence and impermanence, between the enduring and the ephemeral. Wool, with its organic warmth and tactile presence, carries within it centuries of stories, while copper threads act as conduits not merely of physical support but of cultural transmission. The installation does not resist change but embraces it, allowing the environment to inscribe itself upon the materials. In this way, "The Desert of the North" mirrors the desert's own relationship with time: both are shaped by elemental forces, both bear the marks of their journey, and both remain fundamentally themselves even as they transform.
read more
DESERT OF THE NORTH
This work is inspired by the artists native North Africa and the landscape of the desert that is central to the history of the rergion. "The Desert of the North" speaks to both tradition and transformation. Copper, a metal treasured across civilizations for its conductivity and malleability, here becomes a structural element, sixteen metres of thread holding aloft cascades of wool in a delicate equilibrium. This marriage of materials creates a dialogue between permanence and impermanence, between the enduring and the ephemeral. Wool, with its organic warmth and tactile presence, carries within it centuries of stories, while copper threads act as conduits not merely of physical support but of cultural transmission. The installation does not resist change but embraces it, allowing the environment to inscribe itself upon the materials. In this way, "The Desert of the North" mirrors the desert's own relationship with time: both are shaped by elemental forces, both bear the marks of their journey, and both remain fundamentally themselves even as they transform.
read more
DESERT OF THE NORTH
This work is inspired by the artists native North Africa and the landscape of the desert that is central to the history of the rergion. "The Desert of the North" speaks to both tradition and transformation. Copper, a metal treasured across civilizations for its conductivity and malleability, here becomes a structural element, sixteen metres of thread holding aloft cascades of wool in a delicate equilibrium. This marriage of materials creates a dialogue between permanence and impermanence, between the enduring and the ephemeral. Wool, with its organic warmth and tactile presence, carries within it centuries of stories, while copper threads act as conduits not merely of physical support but of cultural transmission. The installation does not resist change but embraces it, allowing the environment to inscribe itself upon the materials. In this way, "The Desert of the North" mirrors the desert's own relationship with time: both are shaped by elemental forces, both bear the marks of their journey, and both remain fundamentally themselves even as they transform.
read more



Desert of the North, wool and copper, (16 x 4 x 0,6m) 2024. The Ned Doha, Qatar Museums Collection - Photo: Julian Velasquez
Desert of the North, wool and copper, (16 x 4 x 0,6m) 2024.
The Ned Doha, Qatar Museums Collection - Photo: Julian Velasquez
COLLECTIVE HERITAGE
To encounter "The Desert of the North" is to step into a space where geographical boundaries dissolve and cultural landscapes converge. The work positions the desert not as a barrier but as a threshold, a space of passage, encounter, and possibility. From the Sahara to the Arabian Peninsula, deserts have long functioned as sites of exchange, places where trade routes intersected and cultures mingled, where pilgrims journeyed and stories travelled across vast expanses of sand. El Gotaibi's installation evokes this legacy of connection, creating a visual and spatial experience that collapses distance while honouring difference. The suspended wool becomes a map of movement, tracing invisible routes between Morocco and Qatar, between past and present, between individual memory and collective heritage.
read more
COLLECTIVE HERITAGE
To encounter "The Desert of the North" is to step into a space where geographical boundaries dissolve and cultural landscapes converge. The work positions the desert not as a barrier but as a threshold, a space of passage, encounter, and possibility. From the Sahara to the Arabian Peninsula, deserts have long functioned as sites of exchange, places where trade routes intersected and cultures mingled, where pilgrims journeyed and stories travelled across vast expanses of sand. El Gotaibi's installation evokes this legacy of connection, creating a visual and spatial experience that collapses distance while honouring difference. The suspended wool becomes a map of movement, tracing invisible routes between Morocco and Qatar, between past and present, between individual memory and collective heritage.
read more
COLLECTIVE HERITAGE
To encounter "The Desert of the North" is to step into a space where geographical boundaries dissolve and cultural landscapes converge. The work positions the desert not as a barrier but as a threshold, a space of passage, encounter, and possibility. From the Sahara to the Arabian Peninsula, deserts have long functioned as sites of exchange, places where trade routes intersected and cultures mingled, where pilgrims journeyed and stories travelled across vast expanses of sand. El Gotaibi's installation evokes this legacy of connection, creating a visual and spatial experience that collapses distance while honouring difference. The suspended wool becomes a map of movement, tracing invisible routes between Morocco and Qatar, between past and present, between individual memory and collective heritage.
read more



Desert of the North, wool and copper, (16 x 4 x 0,6m) 2024. The Ned Doha, Qatar Museums Collection - Photo: Julian Velasquez
Desert of the North, wool and copper, (16 x 4 x 0,6m) 2024.
The Ned Doha, Qatar Museums Collection - Photo: Julian Velasquez
DIGNITY & ENDURANCE
The Desert of the North" breathes. The suspended wool shifts with air currents, responding to the movement of bodies through space, to changes in temperature and humidity. This responsiveness transforms the installation from object into environment, from representation into experience. The desert, often perceived as static and unchanging, is in truth a landscape of constant motion, dunes migrate, winds reshape surfaces, light transforms colour and form throughout the day. This is the desert as El Gotaibi understands it: not a void to be crossed but a presence to be honoured, not a symbol of absence but an embodiment of resilience, dignity, and the profound beauty of endurance. Amy El Gotaibi
read more
DIGNITY & ENDURANCE
The Desert of the North" breathes. The suspended wool shifts with air currents, responding to the movement of bodies through space, to changes in temperature and humidity. This responsiveness transforms the installation from object into environment, from representation into experience. The desert, often perceived as static and unchanging, is in truth a landscape of constant motion, dunes migrate, winds reshape surfaces, light transforms colour and form throughout the day. This is the desert as El Gotaibi understands it: not a void to be crossed but a presence to be honoured, not a symbol of absence but an embodiment of resilience, dignity, and the profound beauty of endurance. Amy El Gotaibi
read more
DIGNITY & ENDURANCE
The Desert of the North" breathes. The suspended wool shifts with air currents, responding to the movement of bodies through space, to changes in temperature and humidity. This responsiveness transforms the installation from object into environment, from representation into experience. The desert, often perceived as static and unchanging, is in truth a landscape of constant motion, dunes migrate, winds reshape surfaces, light transforms colour and form throughout the day. This is the desert as El Gotaibi understands it: not a void to be crossed but a presence to be honoured, not a symbol of absence but an embodiment of resilience, dignity, and the profound beauty of endurance. Amy El Gotaibi
read more



Saboura in process, 2024 Marrakech



Saboura in process, 2024 Marrakech

