The Desert Was Future + The Past Will Rain: Screening and Sound Bath

Join us for a screening of The Future Was Desert (Part I and II) (2016) by Sophia Al-Maria followed by a past life regression sound bath, The Past Will Rain by Naoco Wowsugi. This programs coincides with the final day of the exhibition, , organized by Mojdeh Rezaeipour.

“Deserts possess a particular magic, since they have exhausted their own futures, and are thus free of time” (J.G. Ballard). This quote opens and sets the tone for Sophia Al-Maria’s film, which pursues the artist’s interest in exploring the visual and aural aesthetics of deep time and post-human time in the Gulf Region. Depicting the intricacy between fossil fuel dependency, wealth, and environmental devastation, Al Maria creates a set of delirious, post-apocalyptic dreamscapes in which past and future appear as arbitrary temporal references within a complex geopolitical landscape.

Responding to the film, The Past Will Rain offers a meditative past-life regression sound bath, hydrated by vibrations, imagination, and relaxation. Drawing inspiration from the sincerity and peculiarity found in spiritual rituals from cultural traditions —such as rainmaking—this collective healing experience weaves these elements in, seeking to traverse dimensions beyond the inner and outer, spiritual and physical, visible and invisible, the online and IRL, as well as the past, present and future, unlocking the fluidity of time.

Sophia Al-Maria is a Qatari-American artist, writer, and filmmaker living and working in London. Her work spans many disciplines including drawing, collage, sculpture, and film, and is united by a preoccupation with the power of storytelling and myth, and in particular with imagining counter-histories and alternative futures. Al-Maria’s debut exhibition in the United States at the Whitney Museum of Art in 2016 attended to the Persian Gulf’s embrace of consumerism.

Naoco Wowsugi is a community-engaged artist who lives and works in DC. Wowsugi’s cross-disciplinary projects range from portrait photography, participatory performance, and collective healing, to horticulture, exploring the nature of belonging and inclusive community building while they highlight and fortify everyday communal and interpersonal identities. Wowsugi’s art practice blurs the lines between being an artist and an engaged citizen.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Flagg Building, 500 17th Street Northwest, Washington, United States