Y "Why!"

Renowned for large-scale multimedia installations, Buthayna Ali first conceptualised Y "Why!" in 2008. Upon being invited to participate in the exhibition Told | Untold | Retold in 2010 at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, she was offered the opportunity to manifest the installation physically for public display. Comprised of 22 slingshots in varying sizes, each with its long elastic band stretched taut and anchored to the floor, the work refers to the number of Arab states from which refugees originate. Here, reflections on personal biography and historical circumstances are intermixed. They are an outcome of the artist’s long-term thought process referring to her direct experience of the instability of immigration.

Ali deliberately employed the slingshot as a symbol of sudden and abrupt movements between countries, as well as the difficulties faced by migrants or refugees to develop a sense of connection with transitional places. Consequently, life experiences within these places define and redefine notions of cultural identity, the self and one’s community as a whole. The scattered display mirrors the multiple, divergent passages of a hyper-globalised world, but always with a focus on the reality of expulsion from one’s native land. Through Y "Why!", the artist highlights impermanence’s intangibility, using an object that signifies both the innocence of child’s play and the danger of rebellion.