Fragile Lands
Wall mural and Installation, 2023
270.93 * 87.09 cm

 In Fragile Lands, Mai Al Shazly explores the enduring legacy of colonial violence through the lens of imperial debris—shifting the critical gaze from ruins as static remnants of the past to “ruination” as an ongoing process through which imperial power continues to shape the present.

Her work interrogates the cultural significance of so-called “English crockery,” particularly the Chinese-inspired Willow Pattern porcelain, as a vessel of colonial nostalgia and material domination. These seemingly decorative objects become powerful carriers of traumatic history and cultural monopoly.

In this installation, Al Shazly creates a facsimile of a bomb, its surface encrusted with porcelain shards, as well as a battle tank whose wheels have been replaced by fragments of the same decorative ware. These objects speak to the entanglement of violence and aesthetics—where symbols of domestic refinement are recast as instruments of destruction.

Through these new sculptural interventions, Al Shazly engages with the colonial debris of fragile, conflict-affected geographies, drawing attention to how beauty, power, and violence often coexist in the material legacies left behind.

Featured in the exhibitions;
SHATTER&SHAPE Porcelain Matters' exhibition at Philomena+ art & architecture, Vienna, Austria, 2023, curated by Christine Bruckbauer