Untitled
Abdulaziz Alrabea and Alya Tamer
Visual Art
This project is a photographic study of Failaka Island’s shifting landscapes, exploring themes of abandonment, ecology, and transformation. Once a place of life and prosperity, the island now stands as a quiet dialogue between human traces and nature’s reclamation.
Combining traditional and contemporary techniques, the work employs the trichrome process to reimagine Failaka’s abandoned structures through shifting layers of color. The film will be developed using plant-based developers made from the island’s own flora, allowing the island itself to take part in telling its story.
The final pieces will take the form of gum dichromate prints and light-reactive installations, where the photographic layers can be experienced either together or revealed separately through changes in light.
Alya Tamer
Alya Tamer is an architect and designer based in Kuwait. Her practice moves fluidly between narrative, research, and experimentation. Her background in architecture has helped her form a knack for storytelling and using her architecture as a medium. She has also recently developed a strong interest in heritage conservation and adaptive reuse, especially in how architecture can carry, reshape, or even disrupt collective memory.
Alya is also drawn to speculative and conceptual design that pushes beyond conventional thinking. Through drawing, photography and spatial storytelling, she explores both real and imagined environments. Her work often shifts between grounded investigations of place and playful narrative-driven proposals, reflecting a curiosity for both the forgotten and the unconventional.
Abdulaziz Alrabea
Abdulaziz Alrabea is a Kuwait-based artist and lab technician at Studio Khemiae, a community darkroom dedicated to analogue photography and alternative printing processes. His work centers on material-based techniques such as cyanotype, Van Dyke, and liquid emulsion printing, often using personal and found imagery to explore memory, cultural rituals, and storytelling through surface and process.
With a background in Mechanical Engineering from Glasgow, Abdulaziz brings a balance of technical precision and poetic experimentation to his practice. He regularly leads workshops, organizes exhibitions and screenings, and contributes to the wider photography community in Kuwait. His recent works include Tales in Stone, a photo installation inspired by Sadu weaving, and Karasi Finds, an ongoing photographic blog exploring everyday ephemerality. His practice engages deeply with the emotional resonance of imagery and its ability to preserve what is fading or overlooked.