Interbeing Vol. 1

Interbeing Vol 1 is a  project by Adam Weismann shot on location in The King Khalid Royal Reserve, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the end of 2024. The result of months of careful planning, preparation and permissions, the film explores the collaborative aspect of making clay artwork across countries and cultures, the sharing of knowledge and the specific topography of place – incorporating pigments and sand specific to this part of the desert in its realisation. 

The film maker Rawan Namngani documents this journey through time and through a landscape – charting a collaboration and process of learning across geology, culture, craft and music. 

Claymoon is a project that speaks to the rhythms of nature and the interconnectedness of all life. The frames of the film explore the movement of light on the strata of ancient rocks – their deep lines, the hidden tracks of footsteps taken – and a process of erosion and renewal; of rock into pigment and clay recreated as art. They are an ode to deep time. 

The flowing motion of the canyons and wadis, shaped by the movement of elements and the processes of deep time, lead to a clearing – a gathering place – where together Adam Weismann and traditional Saudi earth builder Abdulaziz Alhaeti mix clay, whilst Alaa Maghawi – a traditional Saudi pigment specialist – grinds rocks to create pigment. The movement of all three sustained by the rhythm of Abdulaziz’s chanting as time is reflected back – a circularity of matter from one form to the next, from the monumentality of the geology to clay and pigment on the makers’ hands.

Whilst Alaa Maghawi’s love of colour and geology provided the foundation for the project it was Weismann’s time spent in the desert – working both in the brightness of the day as well as into the fading light of dusk, as it cloaked the rocks in a dusky haze – that is captured in this new body of work. The atmosphere seeps into the surface of the artworks. A petrified fossil stromatolite – composed from cyanobacteria, blue-green algae 300 million years ago – is at the centre. As the curve of the earth bends away, a fire glows. The arc of time and space is reflected back at us / in the surface.

“To be in the desert collecting and mixing material with Aziz and Alaa was magical. They shared aspects of the land with me that was full of love, knowledge and humility- a gift that I will always cherish.”

“Just as dusk approached all went still…. a sort of haze of peace settled into the atmosphere.

I was able to step back- letting go of all the frenetic energy of the day and allow the ancient grandfather rocks and grandmother clay speak to me. ” 

Adam Weismann