MONIRA AL QADIRI
BENZENE FLOAT

KUNSTHAUS BASELLAND, BASEL, SWITZERLAND
6 FEBRUARY 2026 – 24 JANUARY 2027

For the large foyer wall at Kunsthaus Baselland, which is periodically assigned to artists for extended commissions, Berlin-based Kuwaiti artist Monira Al Qadiri has been invited to create a major pictorial intervention. In her work, she addresses both the Gulf states’ dependence on oil and our global reliance on this resource, along with the devastating ecological and social consequences that follow. With a powerful visual language, Al Qadiri imagines speculative future scenarios and links them to a critical engagement with the environmental conditions that define our present. Curated by Ines Goldbach.

© Images Markus Tretter

FEATURED ARTIST

MONIRA AL QADIRI

Monira Al Qadiri (b. 1983) is a Kuwaiti visual artist born in Senegal and educated in Japan. Spanning sculpture, installation, film, and performance, Al Qadiri’s multifaceted practice is based on research into the cultural histories of the Gulf region. Her interpretation of the Gulf’s so-called “petro-culture” is manifested through speculative scenarios that take inspiration from science fiction, autobiography, traditional practices, and pop culture, resulting in uncanny and covertly subversive works that destabilize mythologies of statecraft and modernization as well as traditional notions of gender. Tracing the delicate ecologies threate...