Rowing Home I

2021

Photography on canvas

39 × 27 inches 

Rowing Home I reflects on the relationship between the body and the sea as a shared rhythm of movement. The series isolates the arm and hands of an Afro-Emirati man performing repeated rowing gestures, echoing the motion of oars cutting through water. The work developed in response to archival photographs and written accounts describing boats traveling across Indian Ocean trade routes. While these records were written in an administrative tone, they carried traces of movement and bodily endurance. By fragmenting the body and removing environmental context, the photographs suspend portraiture and hold gesture as a trace of memory. Repetition becomes a quiet form of continuity, where motion persists even when narrative remains absent.