Food for Thought — Al Muallaqat

Saudi artist Maha Malluh works with objects that have already lived long domestic lives. These aluminium cooking pots are darkened by fire and bear traces of meals, family gatherings and everyday labour.

The title evokes the Mu‘allaqat, the celebrated pre-Islamic Arabic odes traditionally said to have been hung in gold at the Kaaba. Malluh carries the idea of the ‘suspended’ text into space: lines of poetry give way to circles of cookware arranged as a rhythmic field.

The installation brings lofty literary memory into contact with the most ordinary household object. From afar it reads as rigorous abstraction; close up, every scorched and battered surface reveals an individual history—the collective biography of a community.