Manal AlDowayan
Watch Before You Fall Tapestry, 2023
Sadu Weaving of natural wool, clay, rope
236 x 70 cm
92 7/8 x 27 1/2 in
92 7/8 x 27 1/2 in
Copyright The Artist
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Watch Before You Fall uses Sadu weaving, a tradition practised for generations by Bedouin women to make tent walls, floor coverings and riding gear. Through this work, AlDowayan takes up...
Watch Before You Fall uses Sadu weaving, a tradition practised for generations by Bedouin women to make tent walls, floor coverings and riding gear. Through this work, AlDowayan takes up the technique directly, weaving natural wool and incorporating small clay tokens and rope.
Rapid urbanisation has made Sadu weaving nearly obsolete within a single generation. By continuing to practise the technique, the work carries this form of knowledge into a contemporary context. The ancestral and the contemporary are therefore brought together through the same material practice, with the inherited technique continuing by being worked again.
