A broken airport runway sign with Arabic and English text, a damaged black airplane seat, illuminated by yellow lighting, with various cables and a hose in a dark background.
Three butterflies, one orange and black, one yellow and black, and one green and black, flying against a brown background.
Three women wearing black clothing, with butterflies and a butterfly mask, posing in front of a red curtain. Ayesha Hadhir, Rawdha Al Ketbi and Shaikha Al Ketbi.

Farasha

Illuminated carousel with giraffe figures on water at dusk, surrounded by trees. Dawaran, 2022. Ayesha Hadhir, Rawdha Al Ketbi and Shaikha Al Ketbi.
Underwater image showing a fish with a lure in its mouth, attaching to a fishing line, with water and rocks in the background. Ayesha Hadhir.
Near a rocky desert backdrop, an unidentified figure with their back to the camera holds a metal tray above their head. Ayyn, 2023. Ayesha Hadhir, Rawdha Al Ketbi and Shaikha Al Ketbi.
A red, black, and white butterfly with its wings partially open, flying against a dark background.
A person dressed in colorful clothing sitting on a submerged altar in water, with part of the altar visible above the water surface, featuring a patterned cloth and inscriptions. Ayesha Hadhir, Rawdha Al Ketbi and Shaikha Al Ketbi.
Three women sitting around a table with a red curtain backdrop, one with glasses and a giraffe hair accessory on her head, and another looking at her, Ayesha Hadhir, Rawdha Al Ketbi and Shaikha Al Ketbi.
Illuminated yellow steel structure floating on water with city skyline and dark cloudy sky in the background. Dawaran, 2022. Ayesha Hadhir, Rawdha Al Ketbi and Shaikha Al Ketbi.
A black spiral staircase with various toys and figurines placed on the steps, including a yellow giraffe, a yellow toy car, and other small objects, with decorative flowers and a chandelier hanging from the ceiling above.
A room with vintage and modern furniture including an ornate gold throne-like chair, an intricate wooden bench, a gilded armchair, and sculptural chairs, set against a dark background with red lighting and decorative items.
Art installation of three dress sculptures with illuminated outlines, floating on water at sunset, with city skyline and a bird flying overhead. Ayesha Hadhir, Rawdha Al Ketbi and Shaikha Al Ketbi.
A blue and purple butterfly on a light blue background.

The Farasha Collective brings together three Emirati artists—Ayesha Hadhir, Rawdha Al Ketbi, and Shaikha Al Ketbi—whose practices converge around the afterlives of objects, the choreography of memory, and the porous boundaries between the visible and the invisible. Moving fluidly between the sea, the desert, and the civic institutions of the UAE, the collective approaches the nation not as a fixed narrative, but as a living ecology of rituals, transmissions, and reappearances.

Each member arrives with a distinct lexicon:

Ayesha descends into the sea to transform objects through tabarruk—a material blessing born of salt, coral, and time. When these objects resurface, they carry a skin of the unseen, as if the ocean had embroidered memory into matter.

Rawdha stands at the threshold where language becomes weave. Letters crack open into hollows; carpets solidify into concrete; textiles suspend between ritual and architecture. Her works perform a slow negotiation between solidity and softness, body and archive.

Shaikha inhabits the minimalism of the desert, a landscape of remnants, post-migration rites, and metaphysical time. Rusted bathtubs, satellite dishes, and playgrounds become monoliths—triggers for perception and vessels for ancestral knowledge.

What unites them is not medium, but method: each works through encounter, where the ordinary is estranged until it reveals a speculative past or an unrealized future. The collective’s installations operate like wombs, thresholds, or portals, where objects, textiles, and language shed their utilitarian skins to become carriers of memory, ceremony, and possibility.

Across projects—from the archival desert interventions of Ayyn and the civic choreography of Neither Visible Nor Concealed, to the revolving cosmologies of Dawaran—Farasha’s works reweave domestic materials into mythic infrastructures. Carpets fly without flying; garments remember other countries; relics return from the sea with new skins; the desert becomes a studio of metaphysical physics.

At stake is a larger inquiry into how a young nation remembers, dreams, and narrates itself. Drawing from Bedouin lineages, familial ritual, feminine labor, and the lived infrastructures of the UAE, the collective activates a reservoir of civic knowledge that exceeds the studio and touches the ceremonial, the diplomatic, and the institutional realms.

In this way, Farasha operates not as a singular voice but as a triad of echoing temporalities—sea, textile, and desert—each bending time toward a shared pursuit: to reveal where memory becomes matter, where the invisible gains a skin, and where the remnants of life become generative again.