Dodging Bullets (Series)

DODGING BULLETS is a series of sandblasted glass vessels that mimic clay pots used in military target training. The work stems from archival and contemporary footage of Arab military performances. These practices were inherited from colonial legacies that aimed to present Arab soldiers as isolated, disciplined, and receptive national subjects. The men were subsequently presented as exhibition pieces for the rest of the world to see while displaying an order presumed lacking in the region.

Arab soldiers and military institutions continued to repeat rather than re-present these now traditionalized rituals. Such adoptions almost invariably lead to maladaptation, proven by a compilation of missed targets. The concept lies in the process of production—of inflating scorching molten glass that is quickly manipulated into the desired shape. The method references the narrow window of time in which men are molded into soldiers, trapped between imagination and reality through their materiality.