Avenues Mall
Manama - Bahrain
Avenues Mall is more than a retail destination — it’s a civic interior, a daily promenade where Bahrain’s rhythms pass through light, water, and movement. For this project, XOC developed a series of site-specific public art interventions that echo the mall’s architecture and extend its atmosphere: from the honeycomb geometry of the dome to the sea-borne memory of the Gulf. Each installation was conceived as a quiet landmark — inviting pause, orientation, and a sense of belonging within the flow of the space.
The Bees Installation
Beneath the Avenues dome, the hexagon grid already hums with its own logic — a quiet architecture of order, rhythm, and return. We chose not to compete with that language, but to answer it.
Suspended within the lattice, the bees appear mid-flight: small, luminous presences that animate the void and draw the eye upward. More than ornament, they become a living metaphor for collective energy — a reminder that the most vibrant places are shaped by movement, purpose, and shared work.
The installation turns a central passageway into a moment of lift. A pause inside the pace of shopping. A subtle choreography of light, shadow, and motion — where the ceiling doesn’t just cover the space, it completes it.
The Fishing Nets Installation
Light nets drift across the courtyard like a tide held in suspension. As air moves through them, they shift gently—turning the volume above into a soft, breathing sea.
The work draws on Bahrain’s coastal memory: fishing, pearl diving, and the quiet endurance of those who lived by the water. Here, that heritage isn’t illustrated; it’s felt. Beneath the nets, the courtyard becomes a threshold between land and sea—an atmosphere of calm that invites people to slow down and look up.
Outdoor Sculptures
Our proposal is tailored to create a dynamic public art piece Along the waterfront promenade, sculptural forms mark the walk like anchors and waypoints. Their silhouettes are abstract, but their presence is grounded—human-scaled monuments in conversation with sky, palm, and water. By day, they read as clean lines against the horizon; by dusk, they become figures of stillness in a moving landscape.
These works extend the mall’s interior narrative outward, giving the public realm its own cadence. Not objects placed on a path, but companions to the walk—inviting pause, perspective, and a subtler kind of belonging.
