Mohammad Al Faraj – Sophia, 2018

Blaise Adilon
Blaise Adilon

Venue

Guimet Museum

Lyon

Born 1993 in Al Hassa, Saudi Arabia, where he lives and works.

In his videos and installations, Mohammad Al Faraj uses collage and overlay techniques to explore the relationships between concepts and objects, and between fiction and non-fiction subjects. Through the use of news items and storytelling, the artist seeks to reveal the proximity of the human condition to the experience of other species and its implications on the future of existence. In Sofia, he addresses the case of a robot named Sofia, who in 2017 was granted Saudi citizenship at an information technology congress in Riyadh. He draws a parallel with the situation of stateless people, juxtaposing images of the latter with footage of a TV programme covering Sofia’s citizenship. Al Faraj thus interrogates our ability to absorb TV content, which we are exposed to daily.