Exhibited at:
Taidetehdas, Porvoo, Fi
Bahrain National Museum, BH
Grand culture house, Porvoo, Fi
Lukan Helsinki, Fi
Origins: Dance of the Oyster
The artistic practice of Mariam Haji / Meri Helmi was born from a confrontation with contradiction. After relocating from Bahrain to Scandinavia, the artist was struck by the eerie light of northern summers nights that never turned dark, in sharp contrast to the velvety warmth of Gulf evenings she had known. The physical dislocation mirrored an internal one, pulling her between identities, aesthetics, and emotional worlds.
It was in this tension that the oyster shell became a central metaphor, an object of memory, transformation, and paradox. Drawn from Bahraini waters, the shell encapsulates something ancient and organic, now set in dialogue with resin and glass. These materials behave differently under pressure glass forged by fire, resin softened by it mirroring the emotional heat and fragility that run through the artist’s life and work.
As Meri Helmi, she began layering in another essential material: fabric, plush, patterned textiles that recalled the maximalist interiors of Gulf homes in the 1980s and 90s. These domestic spaces were vibrant, ornate, and filled with texture yet often dismissed as “too ethnic” to be considered high design or contemporary beauty. By integrating these materials into her sculptural forms, she reclaims and recontextualises them, making “extra” belong within minimalism, and placing inherited aesthetic codes alongside Western design ideologies.
Her work became a ritual of reconciliation, an offering to both the sacred quiet of northern design and the sensual excess of her upbringing. Shell, resin, glass, and fabric coalesce into delicate altars of memory and meaning. Each piece holds the mess of identity gently, allowing opposites to coexist without hierarchy.
Mariam Haji, known for her intimate, emotive figurations, did not disappear; she expanded as Meri Helmi, her work now looks outward, toward light, balance, and the sacred, while remaining rooted in the body’s truth and the soul’s longing.
“Dance of the Oyster” is not just a memory of Bahrain, it’s a method. It is the choreography of contradiction, where beauty is allowed to be both inherited and invented, both nostalgic and modern, both Khaleeji and Scandinavian, without apology. It is here, in the paradox that her true origin lies.
An exploration of Hybrid Identity - "Scandarabian Art"
