‘Rooms for Error’ is Nadine Ghandour’s first solo exhibition in the UAE, bringing together recent works informed by her experiences in various cities, including Dubai, Sharjah, Cairo and Rotterdam. Working across drawing, writing, performance and sculpture, Ghandour creates works that depict imagined, and often farcical situations set within cities that develop at an accelerated pace, exploring the impact this rapid development has on the people and infrastructure within these environments. The fast-forward city gives rise to characters who are chronically uncertain, navigating and coexisting within these fragile architectures, while constantly teetering on the brink of change or collapse.
Blending imaginative storytelling with factual observations, the works reflect the core principles of speculative fiction. Beyond creating a conceptual foundation for the works, these fictionalised narratives reveal and examine the complexities of living in rapidly evolving cities. In some ways, the more outrageous the stories and situations are, the more revelatory and prophetic they seem to be.
Cities are commonly seen as receptacles of life, preserving both tangible and intangible elements. The fast-forward city is filled with lowrises, highrises and dense neighbourhoods designed to store human life efficiently. The perimeters of the city expand while the living spaces contract. People adapt by reorganising, maximising storage, and creating functional routines that create the illusion of feeling less compressed or confined.
Cities also balance density with openness, offering diverse spatial experiences. While some find comfort in small, compact spaces, others feel at ease in large, overwhelming spaces. Open, clinical settings may initially seem cold or uninviting, but features like high ceilings and spacious waiting areas help reduce feelings of confinement, making people feel less trapped or anxious.
The characters in Ghandour’s works often forget how to adapt to their surroundings. They forget how to move or exist within the city. They feel trapped, and react in bizarre ways as they try to cope with the anxieties and absurdities of living at such a blistering pace. In Looking to furniture for answers (2024), the characters seek guidance from the furniture and architecture around them, shaping or altering their bodies to reflect their surroundings. Similarly, the furniture and architecture appear to acquire human-like qualities. In other works such as In conclusion, inconclusive (2024) and The problem is Gravity so high off the ground underperforming street lamps UNderground comfort of weight of the city and all its inhabitants (2025), the characters and objects are elongated or stretched into a somewhat vertical expansion, while also figuring out ways to compact themselves into a small room.
Rooms appear in Ghandour’s works throughout the exhibition. Empty rooms exist alongside other empty rooms and rooms with furniture, paying attention to everyday objects and elements within these spaces – light bulbs, lamps, chandeliers, beds, as well as the qualities of air – both thin and heavy, slow and fast – along with varying intensities of light.
The concept and imagery of an empty room holds both symbolic and practical significance. While the rooms displayed in ‘Rooms for Error’ are bare with simple compositions, at times focusing only on a natural element such as a shadow or lighting, they also reflect on many issues associated with the rapid pace of development including oversupply, function, isolation and transition.
The repeated nature of the grid motif throughout the works suggests an infinite extension beyond physical boundaries. The grid emerges organically in the works, but it also provides a sense of order. Loose grids and grid-like shapes act as a framing device, often separating rooms, objects and characters into different scenarios. In some instances, the grids form a patchwork backdrop similar to agriculture field patterns and city planning maps, or they simply reflect structural building elements.
As the external world rushes, the works in ‘Rooms for Error’ capture an internal sense of slowness – a moment of reflection or even resistance to the overwhelming sensory overload of the fast-forward city. There is a stillness, a mundaneness, and a sense of suspension reflected in the works that create a delicate tension, heightened by the materiality of the work, and the precarious yet thoughtful way some works have been installed.
The works are reconfigured and frequently remade to fit the unique characteristics of each space in which they are installed, and in some instances the unique characteristics of each space become part of the works. Rather than constructing a temporary wall in the exhibition space, Ghandour hand-rendered a paper wall, South facing wall (iteration 2) (2025), emphasising the fragility and temporality of the built environment. Other works are drawn directly on the wall, often taking over the entire surface area, which will eventually be erased and reconfigured with each iteration.
In some instances, such as, Unstable lighting conditions (iteration 2) (2025), the works are presented as large installations. However, Ghandour works in small formats, given the constraints of the spaces where she creates the work. These modular works can be compacted, folded and stacked for storage and transport, then expanded into larger works once they are installed in more spacious settings. Her art-making practice aligns with the adaptability of the characters depicted in her work, reflecting a shared relationship with constrained spaces.
Ghandour’s distinctive drawing style and works intertwine elements of the real and the subconscious, blending tragedy and humour through essential forms. ‘Rooms for Error’ explores the complex, and at times, absurd relationship between humans and their built environment, reflecting on everyday situations and human interactions within a city.
_ by Dawn Ross
