Very timely, inspiring and heartbreaking exhibition by Palestinian Saudi multidisciplinary artist Dana Awartani at Arnolfini arts, Bristol: 'Standing by the ruins', on cultural erasure, emotional connections to landscapes and healing memories in Arab cultures, from Syria to Palestine via Iraq...
The exhibition features key works including Come, let me heal your wounds. Let me mend your broken bones (2024), commissioned for the 2024 Venice Biennale, alongside the new commission Standing by the Ruins III (2025).
This latest work, created with a collective of craftsmen from Riyadh who specialise in adobe earth restoration, rebuilds the intricate Ottoman-influenced floor design of Gaza’s Hamam al-Sammara – once among the region’s oldest bathhouses, now believed to have been destroyed by the ongoing bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli military.
"Standing by the ruins brings together existing works with a major new commission in a moving exploration of love and loss, destruction and the passage of time," the gallery said.
"Awartani – a Palestinian-Saudi artist – addresses the physical loss of cultural heritage through the lens of abandoned, destroyed and vanishing places. Working across painting, installation, textiles, performance and film, she draws attention to both the human act of making and human loss, reflecting upon the ravages of conflict within the Middle East and architectural modernisation ingrained with colonial legacy."
28 June - 28 September 2025, 11:00 - 18:00
Free entry (suggested donation £5)
-
Photos by myself
No comments:
Post a Comment