The Desert Keepers (2022) is a multichannel video installation that explores the ways desert plants have evolved to survive in their environment, highlighting methods being used by parasitic plants native to the region. These plants have been relying on horizontal gene transfer in which they acquire the genes of different host plants to ensure the survival of their offspring. They contain an archive of the desert history and the keys to livable futures. The narrative part of the installation offers a poetic perspective from these plants and was developed with the writer and poet Wided Rihana Khadraoui. It explores models from the non-human worlds that can be helpful in relation to thinking about climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the future of the Gulf and the Earth.
