“Earth is ever present in these works, at times in its very physical manifestations, of soil, clay, and geological strata. But these terrains, from different parts of the Southwest Asia and North Africa region, also come across as dense metaphorical grounds where relationships unfold and myriad experiences are navigated.”

Public programs: “Notes on Land” including screening program “Elusive Terrains” (co-curated with Lynn Kodeih) and panel discussion “Enfolding Topographies” (featuring artists Ali Cherri, Younes Ben Slimane, Rana Nazzal Hamadeh, Hiwa K, Nadia Shihab, Nour Ouayda, Larissa Sansour, Fatine-Violette Sabiri, Oumayma Ben Tanfous, Roi Saade), Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, presented in partnership with Maktaba (Sundus Abdul Hadi and Yassin AlSalman), Montreal, August 2024.

Keywords: curatorial practice, public programs, video, film, photography, photobooks, lens-based, images, media, art, contemporary, Orient, Orientalism, resistance, solidarity, allyship, challenging, problematic, reductive, stereotypes, representations, critical, criticality, belonging, identity, memory, history, plural, diverse, multicultural, diaspora, immigrant, refugee, communities, society, land, terrains, territories, landscapes, ancestral homelands, geography, topography, ecology, environment, displacement, exile, migrations, colonial, colonialism, Algeria, Egypt, Kurdistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, Yemen, Southwest Asia (”Middle East”), North Africa, SWANA, Arab, Arabic speaking, world, region, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Image: Younes Ben Slimane