Following the opening of her inaugural solo exhibition 'Charts for a Resurrection,' artist, architect and researcher, Dima Srouji is joined by Myrna Ayad.
About Dima Srouji
Dima Srouji (b. 1990, Palestine) is a graduate of the Yale School of Architecture and currently leads the MA City Design studios at the Royal College of Art.
Srouji is an architect, artist, and researcher interested in the ground, objects, displacement, restitution, forgeries, and living archives, looking for potential ruptures in the ground where imaginary liberation is possible. Her work lies in the expanded context of interdisciplinary research projects, and acts as a form of political commentary and as a place-making or unmaking tool. She questions ideas of identity and globalisation through historic strata and spatial edges, in connection to the spirit of a place and displacement through architectural projects, installations, product designs, and through her writing.
Srouji was the 2022-2023 Jameel Fellow at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and her work is part of the permanent collections at the Corning Museum of Glass and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
About Myrna Ayad
For over two decades, Myrna Ayad has authored, edited, and contributed to several books, magazines and dailies on visual art and culture from the Arab world and Iran. A frequent panellist, jurist, and moderator, her role as an independent cultural strategist allows her to work on projects within the luxury sector, government entities, private companies, and non-profit organisations.
Based in the UAE for over four decades, Ayad is a graduate of the American University in Dubai and lives in Dubai with her husband and two children.
Srouji's interdisciplinary work serves as both political commentary and a tool for place-making or un-making, involving collaborations with various experts to explore identity, globalization, and displacement through mediums like glass, text, and film. In her exhibition, she presents two spaces: a larger terrain and a more intimate chapel. The former features installations like stone carved windows imagining future monuments in Palestine and Maternal Labour prints celebrating women who excavated land they owned for western institutions. The latter, resembling a chapel, showcases floating replicas of archaeological vessels, offering a sanctuary for mourning and meditation amidst Palestine's tragedy, while envisioning a liberated future.
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