Crystal Clear Group Show at Bayt AlMamzar Confronts Palestine and Future

Studio salasil, the curatorial duo of Zainab Hasoon and Sara bin Safwan, makes its debut with 'Crystal Clear' at Dubai's Bayt AlMamzar. The exhibition, running until 11 May, was reshaped after October 7, shifting from dreams of the future to confronting an uncertain present. Works by Amad Ansari, Dima Srouji, Rami Farook, Ali Eyal, Sara Bokr, Haneen Sidahmed, and Ahmad Makia address Palestine, occupation, and hope. Srouji's satellite images reveal obliterated Palestinian neighborhoods and obscured Israeli settlements under the 1997 Kyl-Bingaman Amendment. Farook's daily paintings respond to headlines from Gaza. Bokr's 'The Material Fabrication School of Gaza' proposes alternative building materials like date-seed concrete to bypass Israeli bans. Makia's artist book 'Sumer: Self-publishing in Abu Ghraib Prison' reproduces banned texts from Iraq's Baathist era. The show acknowledges that hope must be informed by the past, as seen in Sidahmed's video on Sudan's revolutions.