NG produced a collaboration between composer Fatima Al Qadiri and artist Sophia Al-Maria.
This video project entitled 7ilween, coincided with the release of Al Qadiri’s EP 3TWI on October 9, 2026.
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Shot between Baghdad and London, the music video will be followed by an extended version, premiering at the Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection in Paris in January 2027 with a live musical performance by Al Qadiri. Following its premiere, the extended version will be screened at selected international museums and cultural institutions.
7ilween loosely translates as “pretty young things.” The lyrics play out a shady encounter between a 3twi—a dirty old man—and potential clients who fit the description but are actively playing in his face, highlighting the humorous reversal of power that can occur between a hunter and his alleged prey.
The video unfolds around Shaneera, Fatima’s evil nightlife alter ego, who scrutinizes the camera in defiance of both the lens and, by extension, the 3twi’s unrelenting gaze. It extends the EP’s exploration of the disembodied perspective of the 3twi through characters embodying idealized portrayals of both the 3twi and the objects of his desire. In the video, these take the form of a valiant motorcyclist entranced by voluptuous siren dancers.
Rather than presenting its references literally, the video plays with and transforms them. Elements of contemporary Khaleeji and Iraqi culture are abstracted and remixed into an almost surreal dreamscape. The result sits somewhere between fantasy and reality, embracing recognizable music-video tropes while transforming them into something playful and deliberately excessive.
With support from the Pinault Collection, Paris
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Fatima Al Qadiri (b. 1981, Dakar, Senegal) is a Kuwaiti composer and multi-disciplinary artist based in London. Her work bridges electronic music production, film scoring and visual art. Western dance music and the rich traditions of West Asian culture are two key constants in Al Qadiri’s frame of reference and her extensive discography absorbs and rethinks both. She is also a founding member of the Gulf-based art collective GCC, whose work has been exhibited at MoMA PS1, Fridericianum, Berlin Bienniale and Whitney Biennial. In 2019, Fatima scored the debut feature film by Mati Diop, Atlantique; the film won the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival while Fatima received her first César nomination for Best Original Score. She has since scored five feature films, the most recent of which was François Ozon's L'étranger which earned Fatima her second César nomination for Best Original Score.
Sophia Al-Maria (b.1983, Tacoma, USA) is a Qatari-American artist, writer, and filmmaker whose multidisciplinary practice—spanning drawing, sculpture, video, performance, and experimental film—harnesses the power of storytelling and myth, weaving revisionist histories centered on marginalized perspectives.
Al-Maria has had solo exhibitions at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; Tate Britain, London, UK; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA, among other institutions. Her work has recently been included in the Qatari pavilion at the La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (2022).