'Dust and Other Anxieties' is inspired by Ali Cherri's 2012 video installation 'Pipe Dreams'. The video captures a historic phone call between the late Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad and Syrian military aviator and astronaut Mohammed Ahmed Faris, who was part of the 1987 Soviet Interkosmos space programme. In 'Dust and Other Anxieties', Cherri transposes a statue of Al-Assad – one that still stands in Lattakia – to a desert. The effigy is almost swallowed by a cloud of dust, similar to one created by a spacecraft in the process of lift-off. Through the haze, we perceive what was once a symbol of authority vanishing in a desolate landscape; it is far removed from the signs of life in the foreground, the recent passage of cars per-haps. The monument is seemingly lost in a vast, dusty and claustrophobic post-apocalyptic panorama and is almost forgotten in the background, taking up only a small fraction of the image. Cherri renders the main event a non-event: vulnerable in the midst of a majestic desert, the figure of Al-Assad becomes a haunting after-image, already a ghost of the past. This portrait of a landscape captures the moment when the figurehead begins to lose his power, both as a political figure and as a dominant, and dominating, idea. 'Dust and Other Anxieties' is not a political statement; rather, it is a projection of a hazy, complex and polarised reality. It is a poetic disappearance that leaves us anxious about the void it creates.

Reference AC-PH-2013-A