On January 10, 2020, Oman mourned the death of Sultan Qābūs Bin Sa‘īd Āl-Būsa‘īdī, a much‑loved monarch and founding figure of the modern nation. Over his fifty‑year reign—an absolute record in the Arab world—Qābūs embodied the very idea of a renaissance, the «nahda», transforming the Sultanate through economic and infrastructural growth fueled by oil wealth. His passing opened a time of transition, marked by the accession of his cousin Haitham Bin Tariq and the Oman Vision 2040 program.

It is within this fragile balance between memory and future that the photographic project by Valentin Joseph Valette, Ashes of the Arabian’s Pearl, takes shape. Created between 2020 and 2023, the work closely observes this moment of passage: a period of economic uncertainty but also new possibilities, in which the need to diversify beyond oil and gas is increasingly urgent.

Valette’s visual inquiry builds a metaphorical dialogue between two worlds: that of migrant workers from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—artisans who, with their hands, give shape to the Sultanate’s dreams—and that of Omani entrepreneurial families. Two perspectives that coexist and intertwine, narrating the complexity of a society suspended between tradition and transformation.

The project also draws on a concept from urban geography: the “tomason”—a term used to identify architectures or objects that seem out of place, fragments of a forgotten or unfinished past. In the images, these traces become signs of memory, relics of Qābūs’s long reign, symbols of a glorious time that continues to live on in the urban fabric and the collective consciousness.

Ashes of the Arabian’s Pearl is not just reportage, but a journey between two temporalities: a past that endures as nostalgia and a present that looks ahead, amid promises and contradictions.

Photographs by Valentin Joseph Valette are on view at the Fotografia Calabria Festival through October 12.