Sophia Al-Maria on Writing, Embodiment, and Gulf Futurism

In an interview with Anahita Delcorde for Afterall's Writer-in-Residence series, Sophia Al-Maria discusses the interplay between writing and visual art, drawing on the medieval Arabic doctrine of the Science of Letters by Ibn'Arabi. She reflects on her suspicion of purely digital communication during COVID-19 and emphasizes embodiment. Al-Maria's public sculpture 't araxos' at Serpentine Galleries (2021-22) served as a space for slow performance, featuring Tosh Basco and Kelsey Lu. Her video 'Beast Type Song' (2019) addresses colonialism and intimacy through dance, collaborating with Basco and Yumna Marual. Al-Maria revisits her concept of Gulf Futurism, now pluralized as Gulf Futurisms in her essay collection 'Sad Sacks' (2019), acknowledging its commodification. She explores ruins and nonlinear time, citing pre-Islamic poetry and Octavia Butler's 'Wild Seed'. Her upcoming exhibition 'Wishbone Vision' at Project Native Informant (10 Nov 2021–22 Jan 2022) includes dense paper collages incorporating personal ephemera. Al-Maria is developing a film titled 'The Marina', a Ballardian Gulf thriller in the vein of 'Chinatown'.