Beyond 100°C — Maha Mustafa, Ibrahim Rashid
Author: Clemens Altgård
Sweden, c. 2002–2003
A catalogue documenting the joint work of artist couple Maha Mustafa and Ibrahim Rashid, the first in a trio of collaborative exhibition projects, with an essay by Clemens Altgård titled "The Fire Within." The book centers on the theme of Humankind and Environment, drawing on the artists' own experience of the antagonism between technology and nature, including the withering trees and black rain they witnessed after leaving Baghdad, while situating these personal memories within a broader global perspective on environmental crisis. Altgård reads Mustafa's sculptural and light-based works, including the bulb installation "Field" and earlier natural-material pieces, alongside Rashid's paintings, such as "Landscape without Boundary," through Gaston Bachelard's writing on fire and through questions of Arabic versus Western visual and literary traditions.