Ziad Antar: Portrait of a Territory

Portrait of a Territory is a project by artist Ziad Antar that featured photographs of the UAE coastline taken between 2004 and 2011. While Antar began by randomly photographing the coast, he later worked to systematically document the coastline, Emirate by Emirate, completing the series as part of a Sharjah Art Foundation Residency in 2011. It tells the story of an economic boom and its shortcomings through images of both monumental architectural structures and the abandoned work sites of unfinished construction projects.

This book was published to coincide with Antar’s solo exhibition Portrait of a Territory at SAF. It begins with an essay from Christine Macel who discusses Antar’s photographic process, a short history on the UAE and an overall overview of the book’s premise which draws attention to the creeks and hollows created by architecture. It contains a selection of 267 UAE coastline photographs captured by Antar, some that were part of the exhibition in addition to others from the same series.