Exhibition at The Empty Quarter (September 7 - October 14, 2011) SAHARA SURREAL - Magnus Larsson

Photo above: Dune 08 (virtual rendering of lanscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson /  Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter Gallery

Sahara Surreal trails the bandwidth of 21st-century life in the Great Desert, unhinging stereotypes along the way. Andrew McConnell portrays the underexposed Saharawis, who turn plastic into gold with designer Florie Salnot. Photographer Philippe Dudouit is one of the few to visit the Tuareg rebels of Mali and Niger dwelling in zones off-limit to tourists due to unsettling political changes. Architect Magnus Larsson proposes a 6000 km-long barrier of organically shaped habitable structures by injecting Saharan soil with bacteria that petrify the sand. Aglaia Konrad focuses on the programmed concretization of the desert in Egypt’s struggling satellite cities. In his desert manufacturing experiments, Markus Kayser focuses the raw energy of the Saharan sun on laser beams that cut wood and make glass from sand.

Magnus Larsson - Dune

Magnus Larsson / Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter Gallery

For an ambitious landscape design project, Magnus Larsson, a Swedish architect based in London, has proposed a 6,000 km-long wall of artificially solidiïfied sandstone architecture that would span the Sahara Desert, east to west, offering a combination of refugee housing and a “green wall” against the future spread of the desert. He writes: “Architects create spaces that accommodate human activity. As opposed to many of its contemporary counterparts, Dune is not so much focused on the styling of that activity, as on the supporting of it. While designed to visually seduce, Dune is not primarily a formal exercise, but a social, ecological, cultural one. How are we to live with the desert, in the desert, within the desert?”

Larsson’s project won first prize last fall at the Holcim Foundation’s Awards for Sustainable Construction held in Marrakech, Morocco.

Dune 04 (virtual rendering of landscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson, Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter Gallery

Dune 06 (virtual rendering of landscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson, Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter Gallery

Dune 07 (virtual rendering of landscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson, Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter Gallery

Dune 09 (virtual rendering of landscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson, Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter Gallery

Dune 10 (virtual rendering of landscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson, Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter gallery

Dune 17 (virtual rendering of landscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson, Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter gallery

Dune 18 (virtual rendering of landscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson, Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter Gallery

Dune 19 (virtual rendering of landscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson, Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter Gallery

Dune 20 (virtual rendering of landscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson, Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter gallery

Dune 22 (virtual rendering of landscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson, Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter Gallery

Dune 23 (virtual rendering of landscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson, Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter Gallery

Dune 24 (virtual rendering of landscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson, Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter Gallery

Dune 25 (virtual rendering of landscaping progress based on bacillus pasteurii) © Magnus Larsson, Aerials, 2009 © Aglaia Konrad, Photo: Courtesy of The Empty Quarter Gallery

The Empty Quarter

The Empty Quarter is devoted to fine art photography, with an emphasis on works exploring the photographic dimensions of the Arab world. Within this framework, the gallery salutes the achievements of the world’s finest photographers and aims to highlight the talent of photographers from the Middle East.

In addition to the regular exhibitions, the work of the gallery includes instigating long-term projects, curating and organizing exhibitions in collaboration with international institutions and museums as well as publishing cutting-edge photo books. Currently, the Empty Quarter is branching out in the region with projects ongoing in Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia.