MONIRA AL QADIRI
MONIRA AL QADIRI


2014, video, 8 minutes

SOAP

Recently in the Gulf, migrant workers have been almost (if not totally) erased from pop culture, especially within mass-produced TV series and soap operas. The main characters sit in their lavishly decorated extra clean villas, cook their food, eat together, drive their cars to work, and conduct other daily activities. However this is not the case in reality, where most people are serviced 24/7 by house maids, cooks, drivers, public cleaners, among many others.​The title of the piece conflates the first word soap from Soap Opera, and a bar of soap – the temporary disappearing object that magically creates sanitary conditions in its wake; a disregarded existence, very much like the precarious case of the migrant worker.​

 

Commissioned for Creative Time Artist's Report program (2014)

Concept, direction and editing: Monira Al Qadiri; Video: Several Gulf TV soap operas; Actors: Hilda Suwarnapali, Sila K., Kumari S.


2014, video, 8 minutes

SOAP

Recently in the Gulf, migrant workers have been almost (if not totally) erased from pop culture, especially within mass-produced TV series and soap operas. The main characters sit in their lavishly decorated extra clean villas, cook their food, eat together, drive their cars to work, and conduct other daily activities. However this is not the case in reality, where most people are serviced 24/7 by house maids, cooks, drivers, public cleaners, among many others.​The title of the piece conflates the first word soap from Soap Opera, and a bar of soap – the temporary disappearing object that magically creates sanitary conditions in its wake; a disregarded existence, very much like the precarious case of the migrant worker.​

 

Commissioned for Creative Time Artist's Report program (2014)

Concept, direction and editing: Monira Al Qadiri; Video: Several Gulf TV soap operas; Actors: Hilda Suwarnapali, Sila K., Kumari S.