The Clock is Pointing at You (2020). Video: Zainab Alsabba (2020)
A white room, the sound of the clock ticking and an installation on the wall of the clock’s hands, but at unlike its usual appearance with a circular board or directed to the 12-digit timing, it is rather installed horizontally towards you. In this artwork by the Bahraini artist Zainab Alsabba, the artist is simply and briefly formulate through using clock parts as the main and only elements in building her questionable installation work, as it constructed from regular materials that we encounter every day. Although we regularly see the clock on the wall, what Alsabba tries to do is to transform the clock into a meaningful artwork with value and give it another dimension, another form of time, and another word for the clock that eluded its roundness nature and pointed its hands towards you instead of
numbers.
Alsabba creates an astonishing scene that suits our self conversations about the time in the rapid contemporary life. In encouraging writing, she said:
“You are the time which has to come
The clock’s hands point at you and nothing else;
Yes, to you,
There is no time to be concerned about the time.
No time to await an unwritten letter.
No time to await someone waiting for another.
There is no time to wait for the “right” time;
Perhaps it is you who will not linger.
Act! The clock points at you.
Whatever you wish to do, do it and do it now.”
The language of this work is Arabic, or rather understood from an Arabic perspective as the term (the clock is pointing at eight in the morning) is an Arabic linguistic term to describe the time. Alsabba embodies the Arabic verbal meaning into a modest yet deep visual discourse to create an astonishing scene that suits our self-conversations about the time in the rapid contemporary life.
The Clock is Pointing at You (2020). Video: Zainab Alsabba (2020)
This artwork provides an immersive experience as there is no barrier between you (the recipient) and the installation, which makes you part of the artwork, to experience the solitary within the space as if you are within the time, where the time is talking to you directly. Our reactions towards time is a time itself; your fear is a time, your act is a time, your hesitation is a time, your retreat is a time, it is all your life.
The Clock is Pointing at You (2020). Video: Zainab Alsabba (2020)
The clock’s hands that used in the installation were from clocks remains as to invite us to listen to the sound of time in a life crowded with loud answers and a lack of provocative questions. This artwork is an invitation to the city-man to contemplate the time as a natural element of his daily environment, just like the sun, sky, day, and night, as the man is a son of his environment.
Written by:
Sara Alhindi
