"Amma Baad" continues Nasser Al Salem’s expansive approach to the
practice of Arabic calligraphy, testing the formal possibilities of the
tradition to enfold and enact complex conceptual experiments. In
this new series, Al Salem contemplates the Arabic phrase ‘amma
baad’, an expression that has no entirely satisfactory equivalent in
the English language. Often found in formal written correspondence,
the phrase gains meaning through function, following initial
salutations and greetings, while preceding – and perhaps
anticipating – the main subject or story to follow. Meaning, loosely,
‘henceforth’ or ‘as to what comes after’, it is dense with
expectations. Through calligraphic manipulations, Al Salem explores
the potential of the phrase’s peculiar space-time; the idiom
synthesises timeframes, pivoting thought from one moment, one
place, to the next. A formal flourish, it implies deferral, creating a
liminal place of pause. In experimental meditations in sculpture and
on paper, Al Salem expands and collapses conceptions of spatial
and temporal order, imagining new dimensions where possible
alternatives to the here and now exist.