The work responds to the embrace of modernism that can be read across the urban fabric of the State of Kuwait. From the 1940's through to the mid 1980's, Kuwait's oil export industry generated immense wealth and prosperity, establishing the means to declare political independence and its own parliament. In this period, an expanse of aspirational architecture was commissioned and works by Walter Gropius, I.M. Pei, Kenzo Tange, as well as a group of Nordic modernists, including Arne Jacobsen, Jørn Utzon, Malene Bjørn, and Reima Pietilä all feature in the ambition to reflect the marriage of new wealth in keeping with a respect for tradition.

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Kotaiche, a British-Lebanese photographer, draws upon her experience in Kuwait to explore an urban environment that reflects a liberal, progressive and modern disposition in the world that sits contrary to dominant Western perception of the Middle East.