Nour Jaouda's 'Matters of Time' at Spike Island explores memory through textile and bronze

Nour Jaouda presents her first institutional solo exhibition at Spike Island in Bristol, UK, with 'Matters of Time' running until 11 January 2026. The show features textile and bronze works that negotiate between transience and permanence. Central to the exhibition is 'The iris grows on both sides of the fence' (2025), a hand-stitched Khayamiya tent created with master craftsmen from Cairo's historic street of tentmakers. This structure serves as an intimate retreat within the vast warehouse gallery, inviting visitors to mourn uprooted landscapes. Botanical motifs on the tent include the Faqqua iris, Palestine's national flower, which carries political resonance amid Israel's genocide in Gaza. Scattered throughout are bronze fragments of café chairs from downtown Cairo, part of 'An Echo Has No Shadows' (2025), arranged casually to appear like weathered wood. Art historian Amina Diab describes these chairs as 'carried sites,' displaced from Cairo's streets into Bristol's gallery. Wall-based textile works with gaps and perforations demand close attention, reinforcing an experiential hierarchy. Jaouda's practice involves constructing works from offcuts of previous pieces, creating a textile feedback loop that embeds impermanence into the structure. The exhibition emphasizes provisionality and ongoing becoming, with Jaouda stating cultural identity is 'a constant process.'