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Ajlan’s Polaroid installation Mount of Mercy is part of a larger series of the same name in which the artist has collected photographs, hidden letters and personal objects left at Mount Arafat, a hill east of Mecca, by pilgrims during the annual Hajj.
The Prophet Muhammad is said to have given his last sermon at the top of Mount Arafat, also known as the Mount of Mercy. Praying on the Mount is considered to be the most important part of the Hajj Pilgrimage.
Visitors to the Mount will see hundreds of photographs on the ground or hidden among rocks, some with messages of supplication written on the reverse, some taken during the Hajj, others clearly brought from abroad to be left here.
These ritual remnants are regularly collected by Saudi religious police and burned. In preserving these deposited objects, Ajlan documents this little talked-about ritual and expands it into a depiction of collective faith.
MOUNT OF MERCY || جبل الرحمة
Ajlan’s Polaroid installation Mount of Mercy is part of a larger series of the same name in which the artist has collected photographs, hidden letters and personal objects left at Mount Arafat, a hill east of Mecca, by pilgrims during the annual Hajj.
The Prophet Muhammad is said to have given his last sermon at the top of Mount Arafat, also known as the Mount of Mercy. Praying on the Mount is considered to be the most important part of the Hajj Pilgrimage.
Visitors to the Mount will see hundreds of photographs on the ground or hidden among rocks, some with messages of supplication written on the reverse, some taken during the Hajj, others clearly brought from abroad to be left here.
These ritual remnants are regularly collected by Saudi religious police and burned. In preserving these deposited objects, Ajlan documents this little talked-about ritual and expands it into a depiction of collective faith.