Maha Malluh’s sculpture Food for Thought 'Abraj' is produced from recreations of the aluminium pots that came from various flea markets around Saudi Arabia. These pots were used for cooking a special kind of rice in the Saudi Arabian Hejaz province. As Maha Malluh explains, "With food always comes other narratives, other stories, other histories, histories of travel, histories of adventure, histories of change, anecdotes and comic tales. All of which people discuss over food. These cooking pots therefore celebrate Arab history, the Arab tradition of hospitality, and they exist as a visual testimony of personal histories." Maha Malluh further explained that “In my works, I explore our materialistic culture and its relation to national and individual identities. I’m so proud that my work, Food for Thought ‘Abraj’, is the first sculpture made by a Saudi artist in my city of birth, Jeddah.”
The sculpture was manufactured in 2015 under the direction of Akim Monet and Dr Sven Knowles by Kunstgiesserei St.Gallen AG (Switzerland), from Grade 316 Stainless Steel to address the local environment, and with an applied patina to recreate the surface of the original aluminium cooking pots.
As part of the Jeddah Sculpture Museum it was installed by Art Jameel in partnership with Jeddah Municipality on the 2nd March 2016. It is located 400metres (quarter of a mile) south of the Jeddah Sculpture Museum, next to the Al Anani Mosque on Al Quraish Road, Al Hamra District, Jeddah.
Maha Malluh is a Saudi Arabian artist, born in Jeddah and now lives and works in Riyadh, the traditional region of Najd. Continuous in her artwork, that started with collages and developed into photograms and sculptures, is her use of symbolic and real imagery to express her opinion and explore the challenges of modernity that have come so overwhelmingly to life in Saudi Arabia.
