Alia Farid - A Sounding of the Earth

The exhibition A Sounding of the Earth presents the Kuwaiti-Puerto Rican artist Alia Farid, whose work explores the many intertwined past and present histories of the Arabian Gulf. By linking ancient artefacts with today's global oil industry, Farid's work traces how eco- systems, cultures and life forms are shaped by political forces and extractive industries - but also how they testify to resistance and resilience.

Through large-scale sculptures and installations Farid reimagines ancient protective forms and materials to explore the ecological and social crises of our age. Drawing together artisanal and mass-produced objects she combines materials with seemingly different meanings - from blue faience with its 6,000-year history, to polyester resin, a by-product of the 20th-century oil industry. The contrast between them mirrors the landscape of the Gulf itself, where archaeology and industry coexist. Ruins and pipelines cut through the same earth, as archaeologists and oil companies dig for remnants of past civilizations and oil reservoirs. In this terrain, a landscape animated by excavation and extraction, Farid's works emerge, tracing the ways the past re- appears in the present.

At the Glyptotek Farid presents two entirely new versions of her earlier works Palm Orchard and Kupol LK 3303 Talisman, along with a large site-specific installation created for the Winter Garden at the Glyptotek. Together they form a sequence of protective objects and spaces that inhabit the museum architecture. Placed among the Glyptotek's own collections of migrated objects, Farid's works invite us to question the powers that determine the passage of bodies, artefacts and species across borders and time.

Header image: Courtesy the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut / Hamburg

Alia Farid (b. 1985) lives and works in Kuwait and Puerto Rico. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from la Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico (San Juan), a Master of Science in Visual Studies from the Visual Arts Program in MIT (Cambridge) and a Master of Arts in Museum Studies and Critical Theory from the Programa d’Estudis Independents MACBA (Barcelona). In 2023, she received The Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award and in 2023-2024 she was the David and Roberta Logie Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Alia Farid has had solo exhibitions in Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Kunsthalle Basel, Basel; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri; Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam; Portikus, Frankfurt am Main; and CAC Passerelle.

Recent and upcoming group shows include participation in the Geneva Biennale Sculpture Garden, Whitney Biennial, Diriyah Biennale, Bienal de São Paulo, Gwangju Biennale, Sharjah Biennial, Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2001 in MoMA PS1, Yokohama Triennale and Asia Pacific Triennial. She has forthcoming solo exhibitions at Contemporary Art Museum Houston in partnership with Rivers Institute, and in Detroit Institute of Arts.

Unique collaboration

The exhibition is the second in the series of the three-year collaboration between CC and the Glyptotek titled Hosting Histories: Revisiting Cultural Heritage of the Middle East and Beyond, which seeks to revisit the cultural heritage of antiquity and its significance today.

Between 2023 and 2025, three contemporary artistic practices will each create a two-part exhibition that relates to the Glyptotek’s ancient collections and is co-hosted by both institutions.

The exhibition will take place at the Glyptotek from October 2, 2025, to May 31, 2026, and at Copenhagen Contemporary from October 2, 2025, to March 23, 2026.