Model of Motions is a collaboration between artists Sama Alshaibi and Michael Fadel. The multi-media installation includes Swell, a kinetic wood and metal vessel filled with white sand that seesaws, as if gently rocking over the waves of a sea, while also undulating the sand through a second kinetic mechanism inside the boat. The installation also includes a video artwork, Footsteps, which features a male protagonist futilely rowing an oar in an endless white desert. The figure multiplies over time, alluding to Islamic art in which the singular mirrors upon itself, creating formations that suggest an extension towards the divine. 

Swell and Footsteps are connected by a rustic ship anchor partially buried in white sand on the ground, and linked together by a metal chain. The installation forms a snaked pathway that conceptually journeys over sand and water, history, imagination, earthly desire, and celestial wonder. Model of Motions references the historical intertwining of cultures, communities, and commodities that have resulted in movement through the geographic trade routes of the Silk Road.

Both artists are refugees to the USA, displaced by war in their homelands. As such, the installation was informed by their own personal experiences with global movement and a desire to call attention to the ongoing plight of refugees. The work was commissioned by The International Symposium on Electronic Art in 2014 and was first exhibited in Dubai. It was then exhibited at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona (2016), and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum in New York (2017).

Installation at form & concept, 2021.