Walid Siti's 'Fragile Construct' at Meem Gallery Explores Towers of Memory

Meem Gallery in Dubai presents 'Fragile Construct: Recent Works by Walid Siti', the artist's first solo exhibition in the GCC to include his films. The show features works in film, sculpture, painting, and drawing, all centered on two recurring motifs: the Malwiya minaret in Samarra and the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. Siti, exiled to London in 1984, has spent decades reworking these symbols, abstracting them from their geographic origins. His practice uses found, inexpensive materials like wood and wire, emphasizing the building blocks over representation. Works such as 'Build, Unbuild, Rebuild' (2023) and 'Fragile Construction II' (2019) deconstruct the towers into abstract forms. The exhibition includes a sculpture made of ladders titled 'Collective Dream', suggesting collective effort and precarious ascent. Siti's return to Iraq in 2019 inspired two films, 'The Troubled Bear and the Palace' and 'To The Unknown Architect', which dialogue with his iconic towers. The exhibition runs at Meem Gallery, with an essay by Dr. Sarah Johnson.