Manal Al Dowayan ( Manāl aḍ-Ḍawayān; born 1973) is a Saudi Arabian contemporary artist, best known for her installation piece Suspended Together from the Home Ground Exhibition at the Barjeel Art Foundation in 2011. She has shown work in a number of shows including the 2012 Soft Power show at Alan Art Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the 2013 Journey of Belonging, a solo show at Athr Gallery in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the 2017 100 Masterpieces of Modern and Contemporary Arab Art in Paris, France, as well as having her work exhibited in the 2014 USA Biennial in Houston, the 2015 P.3: Prospect New Orleans USA Biennial Notes For Now, and the Venice Biennale in the Future of a Promise Exhibition. Her work spans many mediums from photography to installation and focuses on a progressive examination and critique women's roles in Saudi society.
Early life
Al Dowayan was born in 1973 in Dhahran in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province. She attended university, graduating with a Masters in Systems Analysis and Design. She began her career working for an oil company before transitioning full-time to an artistic practice which primarily examines personal and political issues related to women's rights in the context of ultra-conservative Saudi Arabian laws that include banning women from travelling, driving, or speaking a woman's name in public. Manal Al Dowayan currently resides in London, England where she is working on her Masters in Contemporary Art Practice in the Public Sphere at the Royal College of Art in London.
Photography
Manal Al Dowayan's early work primarily utilized black and white photography, including images from her I AM collection, Drive-By Shootings, and Nostalgia Carries Us. The I Am collection from 2005 was inspired by a speech given by King Abdullah Al Saud when he took the Saudi throne in 2005 in which he emphasized the importance of women's participation in building and enriching Saudi society. The controversial statement was interpreted in many ways by critics both for and against women's rights. Al Dowayan, from the statement, was inspired to photograph the women she believed the king was referring to from engineers to mothers to scientists, her series promoted the visibility and importance of Saudi Arabian women. Photographs from the Drive-By Shootings collection (2011) demonstrate the difficulty female artists working in Saudi Arabia face as their public movements are heavily restricted by the government. As a female, Al-Dowayan could not legally drive, but had a male drive her as she took photographs from the passenger seat of the moving vehicle. The resulting blurred images emphasize that she cannot simply step out of the car in order to create her art, but is subject to maintaining gender-appropriate behavior as an aspect of her creative process.
Installation art
In 2012 Al Dowayan's installation work was featured in the Edge of Arabia show We Need to Talk in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The show highlighted the need for progressive reform in Saudi Arabia as perceived by the artists. At the time it was the largest and most radical exhibit of contemporary Saudi artists, all of whom ran the risk of political backlash for their dissident artistic expressions. Al Dowayan's work Esmi My Name featured larger than life wooden worry beads with the names of women painted on them, hung from wool rope woven by Bedouin women. Saudi Arabians believe to utter a woman's name in public is a shameful or embarrassing taboo, casting Saudi women into obscurity and removing their unique identity, which according to Al Dowayan "is deeply linked to several elements of an individual's personality and one's name is integral among these elements thus by making women's names public. Al Dowayan's work seeks to question and change women's roles and treatment in Saudi society.