Burn It!

The Arab Spring is often considered the first ‘social-media revolution’, with posts and images playing a crucial role in spreading the unrest, like a fire, across the region. Staged in a domestic setting in Saudi Arabia, Burn It! references the spontaneous uprisings that erupted across the Arab world in 2010–12. An ersatz inferno made from tyres, lights, fans and material, the work ‘burns’ without material change or effect and is then dismantled. Originally conceived in 2011, it was not shown until 2020. In the intervening years it existed only as photographic documentation on a private hard drive – a performance between a group of friends who explored these acts of rebellion and protest as unpremeditated, spontaneous expression while suggesting that change comes not in an explosive instant but over time. The self-conscious use of materials staged specifically for documentation – here in its second iteration – reflects the media circulation of images and videos of the uprisings.​