PROJECT

MORPHE

A study of Dubai’s physical stature and the implications of its idiosyncrasies.

Materialized in nearly a single decade, Dubai’s breed of urbanity is both a dramatic spectacle and emblematic of the frenzied ideologies driving it skyward. Apparent in often jarring forecasts of the city’s development – and corroborated by a skyline overrun with restless cranes – a doctrine of growth dominates the local ethos. Each dusty plot along and bleeding off from the city’s main boulevard will successively sprout a billboard featuring an architect’s rendering, and as steadily as these images are bleached white by the sun they are replaced by finished buildings. The routine is dependable if not precarious, and as renditions of every architectural whim unfurl and crowd obstinately beside one another, the imagined “Dubai of tomorrow” feels nearly as tangible as Dubai in the present. In this sense, the city itself can be viewed as an object of speculative fiction, and the Morphé series responds foremost to that peculiar characteristic.

Each artwork is a photographic collage, assembled from a pictorial survey of Dubai taken in early 2015. From several thousand images, architectural and environmental details were recombined to create the final compositions. The technical process deliberately preserved the source material by limiting all manipulation to an essentially kaleidoscopic editorial technique — repositioning and intersecting elements, rather than deforming them. Within the resulting landscape of new spaces and forms, the series coaxes tableaus of desire, ambition, and frenzy from the authentic textures of the luxe metropolis.

The collection includes 15 artworks.

1st Edition, 1/3

MEDIUM Pigment Photographic Prints

design & production