Looking for Oxygen
Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2012) and MAI Gallery, Montréal, Canada (2011)
“Rashid uses painting, photography, and video to create works underpinned by the theme and the clash between people and nature as well as the relevance of people and technology. Looking for Oxygen (2008/12), included in this exhibition, comprises a video featuring a person in a swimming pool, his head covered with a plastic bag and gasping for air, displayed in parallel with an animation depicting the relationship between brain oxygen levels and his body’s movements. Brain is the seat of rational thinking and controls our behavior. The work was inspired by the artist’s curiosity about the extent to which the brain’s biological functions are related to the violent nature of humanity, and how the brain reacts when the body is under threat. At the same time, it conveys the fact that humans are vulnerable creatures who can’t live without oxygen. The image of the artist covered with a black plastic bag, gasping in the carbon dioxide he has exhaled, seems to portray the threat to survival of the human race itself, struggling with the atmospheric pollution that is producing.” - Arab Express: The Latest Art from the Arab World by Mori Art Museum, text by Kondo Kenichi, Yamamoto Kaoru