Event poster design

Studio #10
Omnia and Ali’s shared studio at Alriwaq Art Space, Bahrain

Video snippet from performance

This work is a performance born from frustration with the art world’s disconnect from lived reality and its unspoken rules, including codes of exclusivity, moral posturing, narrow expectations of what it means to be “serious,” and the idea that to climb its ladders one must perform. Rather than reproducing those demands, the work creates space for refusal. Refusal is not understood as absence but as an alternative way of producing art, through play, silliness, shared authorship, and collective experimentation.

The performance took place in Studio 10 at Alriwaq with seven participants, both artists and non-artists. It began with a discussion on refusal, followed by the collective reading of Leonard Cohen’s Thousands poem and warm-up exercises using body, movement, and voice. From there, the group improvised a sound piece using both mouth and body as well as everyday materials such as food wrapping, bowls, and cutlery, which was recorded live while cooking and eating together.

The use of noodles was not incidental. As the go-to meal of the two artists, Ali and Omnia, who share the studio, noodles carried the rhythms of their everyday working life into the performance, blurring the line between art practice and routine. By embracing humor, intimacy, and collective improvisation, Noodle Orchestra resists rigid hierarchies of success and proposes art as a space for openness and shared experience.