Live painting and Q&A with Abdalla Al Omari
Abdalla Al Omari’s The Boat shows world leaders in an overcrowded boat. Not as people in power, but as people who have to flee themselves.
On World Refugee Day, Abdalla Al Omari continues working live on this artwork from the Fenix collection. Which new face will he add? Only he knows.
Watch The Boat grow in real time
With The Boat (2017), Abdalla Al Omari reverses the roles. In the painting, world leaders such as Trump, Putin and Merkel are not sitting around a conference table, but together in an uncertain position. The painting is never finished: leaders come and go, but the consequences of their choices remain.
On Saturday 20 June, from 10.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m., Al Omari will give a live painting performance in the All Directions exhibition space. Visitors can watch as he adds a new face to the artwork. Which world leader it will be remains unknown until that moment.
While Al Omari paints, there will be an opportunity to ask the artist questions. Join the conversation about the world leaders in The Boat, their choices, and the current events behind them.
About The Boat
Artist Abdalla Al Omari’s painting The Boat is as much as five metres long. In the painting, Abdalla depicts world leaders such as Donald Trump, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron as people who are fleeing, in search of a better life. The politicians sit together in an overcrowded boat. Al Omari places the leaders in provocative combinations: Merkel stands beside Orbán, while Trump and Kim Jong-un appear side by side. By placing the world leaders together in this vulnerable position, Al Omari makes a clear point: we share responsibility for one another and for the world.
About Abdalla Al Omari
Abdalla Al Omari (Syria, 1986) is an artist who works with painting, video and performance. His work often deals with power, conflict and identity. Al Omari began his career in Damascus shortly after the outbreak of the conflict in Syria, and now lives and works in Belgium. The Boat is part of The Vulnerability Series, in which he shows world leaders not as powerful figures, but as people in a vulnerable position.
World Refugee Day at Fenix
From 16 to 20 June, Fenix marks World Refugee Day with films, dinners, conversations and art. It is a week to reflect on what it means to flee, to live far from home, and to begin again. The week ends with the Night of the Refugee: a walking event by Stichting Vluchteling, in which participants walk to support emergency aid worldwide.
