DOHA.- Sean Kelly Gallery will participate in the first edition of Art Basel Qatar, with a solo presentation of new work by Hugo McCloud. Created specifically for the fair, this focused body of work, entitled Pollinated Migration, deepens McCloud’s ongoing exploration of migration, global commerce, and the ecological systems that bind these narratives together. Known for transforming single-use plastic into richly layered compositions, McCloud continues to expand the language of his practice, charting the movement of people and goods through scenes of markets, flora, and everyday labor.

For over a decade, McCloud has traveled to markets and industrial sites across India, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, and the UAE, observing and documenting the networks of exchange that structure contemporary life. These journeys inform both the material and subject matter of his work: plastic bags are cut, fused, and layered into tactile surfaces that map environmental impact and the unseen workforce behind worldwide circulation.

The presentation at Art Basel Qatar builds upon McCloud’s recent major work Dislocated Origins, 2022–2024, commissioned for the Fenix Museum in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, which captured a fragment of the international story of migration. In that work, dozens of figures, each driven by necessity, hope, or survival, foregrounded the human realities of displacement, while drawing a poignant parallel between the precarious treatment of refugees and the ambiguous disposability of plastic. With Pollinated Migration, McCloud extends these concerns through a more localized lens, focusing on the date palm and the agricultural workers whose hands shape its harvest.

Rendered in his signature plastic-based technique, Pollinated Migration resonates deeply with the Gulf region, where the date palm is both a historic symbol of sustenance and a contemporary marker of cultural identity. This body of work marks the beginning of a new series in which McCloud examines fruit and agricultural products as connective agents, offering a reflection on how we move through the world, how landscapes bear witness to these journeys, and how both people and plants adapt across borders and time.