2023
Video Art, Mixed Media Installation
It is an open secret that sex work in the UAE dis- guises itself through massage and spa centers, and they are booming businesses.
In certain neigh- borhoods in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, one can witness the colourful phenomenon of the ‘massage business cards’ printed with images of women.
These cards litter the streets and are placed on car windows, the cards are advertisements that openly spell out the available ‘masseuse’ nationalities and addresses of the centers.
The imbalanced gender propotion of foreign residents and immigration loopholes in sex trafficking has caused these massage centers to become lucrative businesses, solutions of desire and needs.
While working on ‘Fish Tank’, the inscrutable and enigmatic na- ture of the industry was further complicated by my attempts to pervasively interpret the space as a young Asian woman, I found myself automatically sexualized and objectified when entering. The removal of a personal story or an identifi- able narrative in ‘Fish Tank’ provides a poetic and imaginative acknowledgment of the objectifying and dehumanizing nature of the sex-trade industry.
The ambiguity of the exotic fish fostered at one of the massage center’s fish tanks as a met- aphor for the merchandising of humans and the human body, is used here as a trope. Mapping these connections between two relatable things is a trigger for doubt. The conscious experience of watching a fish tank catalyzes the imagina- tion towards uncertain, un-told, un-document- ed, un-recognized narratives. As a result, in ‘Fish Tank’ the game of doubt presupposes certainty.