Tabari Artspace has long been supportive of homegrown creative talent here in the Middle East. The hub’s latest exhibition, entitled El Beit, is a collective showing of contemporary and modernist Palestinian artists, each of whom explore themes of identity and issues surrounding collective memory.
A diverse selection of painters, photographers and sculptors have been chosen in the form of Hazem Harb, Mohammed Joha and Sliman Mansour. Despite their inescapable differences and unique experiences, together each creative tackles long-unanswered questions about how a country’s past can influence its future.
The show’s title, which translates from Arabic to English as ‘feel at home’, has been carefully chosen to capture the thoughts and processes of these exceptional talents, all of whom design in the hope that their creative works will cast light on the ongoing impact of the Palestine-Israel conflict.
Sliman, in particular, is a major pioneer of modernist art, and has dedicated much of his career to visualising Palestinian struggle. The only one out of the three artists still living in the state, he founded the New Visions art movement in the late 1980s.
Despite living abroad, Hazem’s installations depict customary Palestinian dress and landscapes, which allows him to rebuild and re-imagine a homeland that’s sadly, for him, now inaccessible. Mohammed also explores homes and daily life in his collages, and often considers themes of childhood, freedom and revolution.
El Beit will run at Tabari Artspace from February 6 – March 8
