Art Awards and Prizes

V&A Jameel Prize 2021 winner Ajlan Gharem: Paradise Has Many Gates

Ajlan Gharem is an artist and mathematics teacher based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the winner of the V&A’s Jameel Prize: Poetry to Politics in 2021. Ajlan’s practice explores how Saudi communities understand and articulate their culture amid globalisation and changing international power dynamics.

In this short film by V&A and Art Jameel, Ajlan Gharem describes his winning installation, Paradise Has Many Gates. The structure replicates the design and function of a traditional mosque, but is made of the cage-like chicken wire associated with border fences and refugee detention centres. The material provokes anxiety, but it also renders the mosque’s interior visible and open to the elements.

When shown in the West, the installation serves to demystify Islamic prayer for non-Muslims, tackling the fear of the other at the heart of Islamophobia. Although its material connects the mosque to an architecture of control, the work is intended to be a site of community connection. Ajlan invites people of all backgrounds, of any religion, to spend time together in the space.

ASIA | Art Spectacle International Asia is an independent online magazine covering contemporary art from Asia-Pacific to the Middle East.

Founder and Editor C. A. Xuân Mai Ardia is a Vietnamese-Italian from Padova, Italy. She currently resides near Venice, Italy, but she has lived around the world for more than 20 years. London was her home throughout university and her first forays in the art world and gallery work, until she moved to Shanghai in 2006 where she worked for Pearl Lam Galleries (then Contrasts Gallery) until 2009. She has lived between Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Padova, Italy in 2009-2016, where she worked at Galerie Qyunh, Craig Thomas Gallery and contributed to Art Radar.

Mai holds a BA in Chinese | History of Art and Archaeology and an MA in Chinese Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK, as well as an MSc in Development Studies | Conservation of Cultural Heritage from the School of Development, Innovation and Change (SDIC), University of Bologna, Italy. She has worked in the conservation of world cultural heritage in Rome and in contemporary art galleries in London, Shanghai and Ho Chi Minh City. Her articles have been published in Art Review Asia, Art Radar, The Culture Trip and CoBo Social.

Mai joined the Art Radar team as Copy Editor in May 2013, and became Staff Writer in November of the same year. Continuing to contribute her writing to Art Radar, she took up the role of Managing Editor from November 2015 to December 2018, when Art Radar ceased publication.

To continue on and contribute to the dissemination of contemporary art ideas and practices from Asia, Mai founded ASIA in Spring 2019.