PARADISE HAS MANY GATES

Paradise Has Many Gates is Ajlan Gharem’s first installation work - a 10 x 6.5 meter mosque constructed from industrial steel. While true to the design and function of a traditional Islamic place of worship, Ajlan’s mosque is built from the same cage-like material that Western countries use to erect fences along their borders, preventing refugees and illegal immigrants from entering.

Along with the installation, the work includes a video of the artist and other construction workers building the mosque in the desert outside Riyadh, staging a prayer performance and then deinstalling it.

Evoking feelings of imprisonment and anxiousness by way of its caged structure, while also representing Muslims' center of prayer, this mosque invites all visitors, Muslim and non- Muslim alike, to question how we designate and behave within sacred spaces, and how their meaning will differ between generations and cultures.

The mosque is a symbol of the power structures that rise above the individual; whether in the form of other brother, father, imam or state. The mosque is at once a free public place, and one where attendance is mandatory.