Program // Educational Exhibition
Location // Kuwait, Argan Business Park
Area // 150 sqm
Year // 2017
Status // Completed
Parallel Studio and Aysha Al Nafisi embrace an artistic perspective that aims to deliver the notion and awareness through an interactive design method. The design idea aims to frustrate the visitor through the increased amount of repeated elements. The main structure built around black colored maze entices the beholder’s sense of solitude and loss while dimmed purple pinkish color stroke of light in the maze pathways increases frustration, inhibition, emotional claustrophobia, emasculation, physical weakness has given colors psychological properties.
Following this journey, visitors enter the “The Moment Room”. The distorted space cladded with mirrored material creates with the visitor a sense of instability that further develops Aysha Alnafisi’s concept arising from the main purpose of emphasizing the detail-oriented, Autistic individuals would perceive from repetitiveness. Within the maze, you will face some dead-end spaces, which will act as stations to exhibit autistic artwork. As the visitor walks through a hallway to repeat the journey of the maze he experiences solitude and loss time after time similar to autistic people which starts with a moment of silence followed by the feeling of repeated frustration once again when he interacts with people. The purpose of designing narrow pathways is to enhance the fear of the unknown and solitude. At the far end, the exit of the maze faces the solitary art installation designed by Parallel studio.
“Solitary” depicts a child who, from our perspective appears to be “withdrawn, socially awkward and different”. The design concept behind the repeated metal poles is translated by the repetitive characteristics of the autistic people with a lot of details in every metal pole. The construction method and the design process are very detailed with certain measurements and height; this is to alert people about how details oriented autistic kids tend to give to the community. The choice of materials comes with stain steel is to enhance the idea of how socially cold and withdrawn individuals are. The sound that stains and steel produce when you clash them together is disturbing enough. The soundtracks are designed in a way that mimics what they hear is a lot of sound elements at once.
The sounds you hear are composed of multiple soundtracks all layered onto one another. Aziz Al Humaidhi tried to create a somewhat irritating and frustrating audio environment mimicking that of the autistic child.
Special Thanks:
Kuwait Autism Center
Argan Business Park, Free Zone
Al Ghanim International
Abdulaziz Al Humaidhi
Amin Fareed
Nour Buhamad
Sara Al Refai
Nour Al Ghanim
Manyer Al Ghanim