Dakar-born Kuwaiti artist Monira Al Qadiri’s practice traces the precarious nature of contemporary ecologies around the world, particularly exploring the petroleum industry’s ceaseless extraction of resources. In Gastromancer (2023), Al Qadiri suspends two large red fiberglass murex seashells alongside each other. From their individual inner cavities, visitors can hear a dialogue between the two shells recounting their unintentional transformation from female to male due to external industrial factors. Through this exchange, which is composed of extracts from Thani Al Suwaidi’s writings, , we come to learn that their inadvertent biological morphing is caused by the seepage of tributyltin (TBT), a red-hued biocide paint meant to prevent algae, barnacles and mussels from latching onto oil tankers. When female murex mollusks turn male, they lose their reproductive function, directly impacting the species’ futurity. The work reflects on this curious phenomenon.

^{*Currently exhibited ARKEN}