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Lot Essay
Time Betrays belongs to Manal AlDowayan’s seminal series And We Had No Shared Dreams, a body of work that examines the complex relationship between the individual and the rapidly transforming urban environment. Focusing on the psychological effects of demographic change, urbanisation and globalisation, the series explores how individuals negotiate their sense of identity and belonging within increasingly congested and anonymous cities. Central to the series is the city itself, conceived as both a physical environment and an active presence. AlDowayan describes the city as a space that breathes, inhaling as its population gathers around the promise of happiness and opportunity, before exhaling into a state of tension and suffocation. Within this environment, the individual becomes increasingly absorbed into the urban fabric. The city provides the backdrop against which its inhabitants move, but, as AlDowayan observes, it gives them details without necessarily providing a story. Inhabitants consequently become almost theatrical props within an expanding landscape, their individual identities gradually dissolving into the collective anonymity of the metropolis.
The title Time Betrays introduces a sense of instability: time, ordinarily understood as a constant and neutral force, becomes something unreliable, capable of separating individuals from the places, relationships and aspirations that once defined them. The work suggests that the city’s transformation is experienced not simply as physical growth, but as a gradual displacement of memory and identity. What was once familiar becomes unfamiliar; what appeared permanent becomes temporary. The title therefore carries both a personal and collective resonance. Time promises continuity, yet it is precisely its passage that alters the city and its inhabitants. Memories become detached from places, communities change, and identities shift, making the ‘shared dreams’ invoked by the wider series increasingly difficult to sustain. Dreams imply a common future, yet their absence suggests that people living alongside one another may nevertheless inhabit profoundly different emotional and social realities. In this sense, AlDowayan’s city is crowded but not necessarily connected.
The photographs used in the series were captured in AlDowayan’s hometown in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Intentionally taken from moving cars and the rooftops of buildings, they examine the public spaces available to a woman, transforming the work into a deeply personal dialogue with the place where the artist grew up. The use of black-and-white imagery reinforces this sense of distance and memory. Deprived of colour, the city becomes less a record of place than a fragmented recollection or psychological landscape. Against this restrained photographic ground, the illuminated aluminium lettering acquires particular force. Light functions not only as a material element but as a metaphor for attention, longing and communication. The words appear to demand recognition from the city, while simultaneously illuminating questions that remain unresolved. The work thus oscillates between visibility and disappearance: the individual seeks to make themselves heard, yet remains surrounded by the vastness of the urban environment.
Ultimately, Time Betrays is a meditation on the fragile relationship between place, memory and belonging. Through the juxtaposition of photographic cityscapes and luminous questions, AlDowayan transforms the modern metropolis into a psychological space in which the individual seeks reassurance from an environment that is itself incapable of permanence. The city promises connection and possibility, yet its continual transformation threatens the memories and relationships that make it meaningful. In giving the city a voice—and addressing it with questions that remain unanswered—AlDowayan captures a deeply human paradox: our desire to belong to a place forever, while knowing that time will inevitably change both the place and ourselves.
Time Betrays was exhibited at The Foundry, Dubai, in The Circle Was a Point (2024), an exhibition exploring the diverse possibilities of photography and its shifting relationship to space, time and memory. The work originates from the prestigious Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, one of the Gulf’s leading institutions dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Arab art. Its presentation alongside four works by pioneering female artists in Christie’s anniversary auction reflects the Foundation’s longstanding commitment to a gender-balanced and historically inclusive approach to collecting and championing Arab artistic practice.
Born in Dhahran in 1973, Manal AlDowayan is one of Saudi Arabia’s leading contemporary artists working internationally. Her multidisciplinary practice spans photography, sound, sculpture and participatory projects, exploring traditions, collective memory, and the status and representation of women. She represented Saudi Arabia at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024. AlDowayan’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, British Museum, London; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Institut du monde arabe, Paris; Louvre Abu Dhabi; Sharjah Art Foundation; Misk Art Institute, Riyadh and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha.
Her work is held in major collections including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; British Museum, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha.
The title Time Betrays introduces a sense of instability: time, ordinarily understood as a constant and neutral force, becomes something unreliable, capable of separating individuals from the places, relationships and aspirations that once defined them. The work suggests that the city’s transformation is experienced not simply as physical growth, but as a gradual displacement of memory and identity. What was once familiar becomes unfamiliar; what appeared permanent becomes temporary. The title therefore carries both a personal and collective resonance. Time promises continuity, yet it is precisely its passage that alters the city and its inhabitants. Memories become detached from places, communities change, and identities shift, making the ‘shared dreams’ invoked by the wider series increasingly difficult to sustain. Dreams imply a common future, yet their absence suggests that people living alongside one another may nevertheless inhabit profoundly different emotional and social realities. In this sense, AlDowayan’s city is crowded but not necessarily connected.
The photographs used in the series were captured in AlDowayan’s hometown in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Intentionally taken from moving cars and the rooftops of buildings, they examine the public spaces available to a woman, transforming the work into a deeply personal dialogue with the place where the artist grew up. The use of black-and-white imagery reinforces this sense of distance and memory. Deprived of colour, the city becomes less a record of place than a fragmented recollection or psychological landscape. Against this restrained photographic ground, the illuminated aluminium lettering acquires particular force. Light functions not only as a material element but as a metaphor for attention, longing and communication. The words appear to demand recognition from the city, while simultaneously illuminating questions that remain unresolved. The work thus oscillates between visibility and disappearance: the individual seeks to make themselves heard, yet remains surrounded by the vastness of the urban environment.
Ultimately, Time Betrays is a meditation on the fragile relationship between place, memory and belonging. Through the juxtaposition of photographic cityscapes and luminous questions, AlDowayan transforms the modern metropolis into a psychological space in which the individual seeks reassurance from an environment that is itself incapable of permanence. The city promises connection and possibility, yet its continual transformation threatens the memories and relationships that make it meaningful. In giving the city a voice—and addressing it with questions that remain unanswered—AlDowayan captures a deeply human paradox: our desire to belong to a place forever, while knowing that time will inevitably change both the place and ourselves.
Time Betrays was exhibited at The Foundry, Dubai, in The Circle Was a Point (2024), an exhibition exploring the diverse possibilities of photography and its shifting relationship to space, time and memory. The work originates from the prestigious Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, one of the Gulf’s leading institutions dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Arab art. Its presentation alongside four works by pioneering female artists in Christie’s anniversary auction reflects the Foundation’s longstanding commitment to a gender-balanced and historically inclusive approach to collecting and championing Arab artistic practice.
Born in Dhahran in 1973, Manal AlDowayan is one of Saudi Arabia’s leading contemporary artists working internationally. Her multidisciplinary practice spans photography, sound, sculpture and participatory projects, exploring traditions, collective memory, and the status and representation of women. She represented Saudi Arabia at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024. AlDowayan’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, British Museum, London; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Institut du monde arabe, Paris; Louvre Abu Dhabi; Sharjah Art Foundation; Misk Art Institute, Riyadh and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha.
Her work is held in major collections including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; British Museum, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha.