Saudi artist and cultural researcher Maram Al Suliman’s latest project now on display in Bahrain is more than an art installation - it’s a safe space to talk about the intimate yet ubiquitous nature of grief.
The 28-year-old artist’s installation For You featuring clay time capsules, capturing the ways we process grief is part of Al Riwaq Art Space’s Residual Spaces group exhibition running until July 23.
“Grief is a deeply personal experience, and at the same time a shared human condition,” Maram told GulfWeekly.
“Despite the uniqueness of each loss, grief reveals similar practices of remembrance – the stories we retell, objects we keep, and traces left by those who have passed within our lives.
“The piece was developed through encounters and conversations with individuals who shared memories of loved ones they have lost, where grief is understood not as a final event, but as an ongoing relationship with absence. “Rather than focusing on death itself, it reflects on what remains: fragments of language, inherited habits, sensory memories, and moments that persist across time.
“Through individual and collective narratives, it creates a space for reflection on how loss is carried and transformed, and how those we love continue to exist within memory, its invocation, and everyday life.”
For You is dedicated to the memory of Maram’s father Mubarak Albakhait, who passed away in October last year, just 10 days after her birthday.
She began this project while experiencing grief after losing him, wanting to express difficult-to-articulate emotions and create a space where others could share their own experiences of loss.
“In our region, grief is often publicly acknowledged during the days immediately following a loss, but the experience itself continues long after the rituals have ended,” she explained.
“I wanted to explore the idea that grief does not have an expiration date and that it is not a linear process. Initially, I imagined the project as a reflection of my own experience.
“However, through conversations with others, it evolved into a collective work that brought together multiple stories and perspectives.”
For You features nine clay time capsules arranged in a circular fashion, creating a ‘safe space’ at the centre, where visitors can walk around the outside or the inside to take a closer look at the ‘grief artefacts’ decal-printed on each of the cylinders.
On the wall beside the installation is an enlarged impression of a poem that Maram’s father Mubarak wrote about loss.
“Creating this work was emotionally demanding because I was navigating my own grief while also holding space for the emotions and stories of others,” she added.
“Listening to people’s experiences of loss was both difficult and deeply human. It required vulnerability, empathy, and care.
“As an artist, I became more comfortable with vulnerability and with creating work that emerges directly from lived experience.
“As a person, the project helped me process my own emotions and transformed feelings of isolation into a sense of connection and community.”
Friends, fellow art residents and members of the wider community shared their own stories with Maram throughout the residency, with the contributors featured in the work representing different experiences of grief and loss, ranging from objects to symbols, poems, songs, or imprints connected to a loved one they had lost.
Inspired by the idea of time capsules and archaeological artefacts, Maram was drawn to clay because ceramics have been central to her practice and the symbolic qualities of the material itself.
“Across many traditions, we are said to come from clay and eventually return to it,” she explained.
“Ceramics also undergo a long process of transformation through shaping, drying, firing, and change. In many ways, grief follows a similar process: it reshapes us over time.”
Born and raised in Jeddah, Maram graduated from the University of Jeddah’s art and design college, and since exhibited her work at numerous group exhibitions across the region.
Her practice draws deeply from cultural traditions, reinterpreting them through a contemporary lens.
Working across mixed media, ceramics, printmaking, digital technologies, and immersive experiences, she explores themes of memory, nostalgia, cultural identity, human connection, everyday life, and the evolving relationship between heritage and contemporary society.
She is the recipient of the Young Saudi Artists grant and in addition to her artistic practice, she is a cultural heritage researcher who seeks to document, preserve, and reimagine the richness of Saudi culture while fostering dialogue between past and present.
For more details, follow
@maram.alsuliman and
@alriwaq on Instagram.
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