A Future in the Making

A Future in the Making brings together emerging artists from the Middle East and North Africa whose practices, while distinct in form and language, are connected by a shared commitment to memory, material, and place. Working across different media such as painting, plaster, photography, textile, and clay, each artist anchors their work in personal and collective histories, presenting artistic objects that recount lived experiences.

Jana El Kurd’s fragile plaster reliefs of half-remembered buildings are made of layering muted tones and tactile cracks that are emblematic of destruction and care. In From Gaza to Amsterdam, Palestian artist Malak Mattar transposes grief onto a monumental grayscale painting, capturing the horror of the ongoing genocide in Palestine with a bold urgency that refuses silence. The repetition in Antoine Deeb’s acrylic portraits of daily life, including his bed, a face, and a coffee cup, acts as an attempt to extract beauty from routine, while Mimo Khair’s photographs and portraits trace threads between places, architecture, and emotion. 

Additionally, from Laura Taleb’s handwoven kilims that reinterpret ancient symbols through contemporary design, to the elegance of Sara and Egwin’s sculptural vessels, the artists in this show share an instinct to shape meaning through material. Their works reflect their origins and experiences as well as visions of where art and life might be headed. This is a generation of artists to follow closely.