Tara Al Dughaither (Saudi Arabia) is a voice mediator exploring improvisation, embodied composition, and inner narratives as a way of regenerating somatic and transgenerational memory, and accessing the khafi: unveiled heart. This extends from and feeds into collaborative modalities of work within Sawtasura or “voice of the image”; a research and archiving platform she founded and launched in 2020, devoted to listening for and re-sounding music histories in the Arab Peninsula with attention paid to instilling courage and trust post-horror and fragmentation.

Tara describes her practice as a lifelong continuum of knowledge accumulation grounded in care, nature, mysticism, psychology, and critical feminist theory.

During her second residency at Delfina, Tara expands on the body as a sacred site or “hima”; working on developing experimental scores as odes to bodies of water in Iraq and the wider region. She will co-compose the scores in a series of sonic, meditative workshops inspired by her study of Pauline Oliveros’s Deep Listening practice as well as through the meditative practice of Muraqaba or (observation) within the Sufi tradition.

In the past year, Tara has deepened her embodied vocal expression. With her participation in OneBeat, a music residency for social engagement in the US, she experimented with music she describes as “spirit advocating”. She has recently contributed to digital research on migratory rhythms in the Arab peninsula with Delfina alumni artist Joe Namy, in a project titled Rhythms of the Rising Sun, for the Diriyah Biennale’s second edition. Earlier this year Tara curated Sonic Recall, a two month community-based listening and music programme in Jeddah’s historical district, exploring sonic expression through workshops, music nights, and an open resourced library of books and instruments. She has organised multimedia archival exhibitions on Saudi pop music, video art, women’s folk and urban songs and continues to publish essays building on what she terms a “folk futurist” framework of chronicles for and by women in the Arab speaking regions and their diaspora.

Tara lives and works from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where she was born.

With support from:

Saudi Visual Arts Commission

Artist’s website

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Please note all artist-in-residence biographies are accurate at the time of their residency. For up-to-date bios please visit the artist’s website.