The abaya is one of the Gulf's most recognisable cultural garments, while oud remains one of its most valued materials. Deeply embedded in everyday life through dress, hospitality, ritual, and craftsmanship, both carry histories that extend far beyond their practical use. Through Oud Abaya, Qatari artist Reem Al Muhannadi brings these materials into contemporary art, creating large-scale installations, sculptural garments, photography, film, and performance that expand the visual language of Gulf material culture.
Departed Soul (Incense Burner), Part of ASBAR / أصبر, 2026. Photo: © Eva Herzog
A Practice Built on Two Materials
Based between Doha and London, Oud Abaya is the multidisciplinary art practice of Reem Al Muhannadi. Working across garment-based installation, sculpture, photography, film, and performance, the practice uses the abaya and agarwood (oud) as starting points for creating large-scale installations and original cultural objects informed by Gulf material culture.
The practice originated in 2023 following a dream of an abaya covered entirely in raw oud. At the time, Al Muhannadi was not making art professionally, but the image remained with such urgency that she felt compelled to bring it into physical form. A few months later, while travelling in the UAE, she drew the garment in the sand—not as a sketch for an artwork, but as the first attempt to bring the object to life. What followed was not simply the making of an artwork, but years of developing the techniques needed to make the object possible.
Blast Abaya (Back), Part of ASBAR / أصبر, 2026. Photo: © Eva Herzog
Craft as Method
There was no established method for incorporating raw oud into garments. Through craftsmanship, material experimentation, and research, Al Muhannadi pioneered its use as a primary material in garment-based installation. As co-owner of Sara Secrets Tailoring Workshop in Qatar, she develops each project in close collaboration with specialist makers, allowing craftsmanship to become an active part of the artistic process. Maintaining direct access to production allows ideas to evolve through sampling, embroidery, pattern cutting, and repeated construction, with the workshop functioning as an extension of the studio rather than a separate manufacturer. New techniques emerge through making rather than following established processes.
Blast Abaya (detail), Part of ASBAR / أصبر, 2026. Photo: © Eva Herzog
Using the material itself is fundamental to the practice. Substituting imitation wood would change not only the appearance of the work, but also its weight, scent, physical behaviour, and relationship to craftsmanship. The material is never illustrative, it remains materially and culturally authentic.
Working directly with oud also transformed Al Muhannadi's understanding of the material. Research into the Aquilaria tree revealed that oud develops only after the tree has been wounded, with resin forming over many years as part of its natural response. Ecology, craftsmanship, rarity, trade, hospitality, ritual, and time all became inseparable from the work itself. Rather than treating oud as a symbol, she works with it as a material in its own right, allowing its physical properties, histories, and methods of making to determine how each project develops.
Aquilaria (Oud) trunk inherited from artist’s grandfather, Part of ASBAR / أصبر, 2026. Photo: © Eva Herzog
Rather than producing individual artworks, Oud Abaya constructs complete worlds in which familiar materials establish new systems of value. Garments, objects, scent, photography, film, performance, and space are conceived together, allowing each installation to operate according to its own internal logic rather than illustrating existing narratives.
