Collection

Sound cells : FRIDAYS, the second installation in Magdi Mostafa’s '(sound cells)' series, is an abstract evocation of the artist’s Cairo neighbourhood, Ardellawa, as heard on Fridays – a day of prayer, but also a day of household chores and cleaning.

Studio Pietà (King Kong Komplex) tells the story of Simon Fujiwara’s attempt to restage and photograph a lost picture of his mother held in the arms of a Lebanese boyfriend.

Commissioned for SB12, this work comprises a four-channel video installation driven by an experimental audio track.

For The Trespassers, Mariam Ghani hired Afghan-Americans who had previously worked as translators for the US military in Afghanistan, translating documents related to US military prisons in Afghanistan.

Translated from Arabic, the phrase reads ‘The wider the vision, the narrower the statement’ and is by the Sufi writer Al Naffari.

This work is inspired from childrens’ stories of their dreams about what they could be and what they hope to receive from the world.

Nadia Kaabi-Linke is concerned with notions of memory and the ways in which geography and politics inform and circumscribe identity.

Under-Writing Beirut - Mathaf looks at historically or personally significant locations within the city’s present, finding in them access to other temporalities.

Unnikrishnan’s paintings and carvings on brick record intimate scenes of life in the city and anecdotes of his relations with people and objects.

Through the work, Nikhil Chopra explores the layers beneath the region’s shiny veneer. By focusing on the positioning of the subject in nature, the artist examines the history of the land and sea and how they have connected people for thousands of years, expanding our understanding of humanity.

In the two-channel video installation, Raedah Saadeh carefully vacuums the barren desert hills of Palestine, working her way from the distance, towards the still camera.

The video consists of long still frames, text, language, and sound woven together to unfold the narrative of an anonymous group who fill their time by measuring distance.