BRISTOL, England — Final yr, Bristol’s Arnolfini cancelled two Bristol Palestine Movie Competition occasions, resulting in controversy and a boycott. After mediation with native teams akin to Bristol Artists for Palestine, Arnolfini issued a assertion apologizing for the choice and committing to upholding Palestinian freedom of expression sooner or later. Their present exhibition, Standing by the Ruins by Palestinian-Saudi artist Dana Awartani, seems (albeit obliquely) to characterize that dedication bearing fruit.
It’s a lovely and understated present, offering a transferring foil to the horrifying photos presently popping out of Israel’s battle in Gaza. Awartani’s follow is worried with the bodily lack of cultural heritage throughout the area, by way of acts of battle and cultural censorship. Her work data websites of destruction by way of light reparation. For example, to create her massive suspended material work “Come, let me heal your wounds. Let me mend your damaged bones” (2024), Awartani maps websites of architectural injury and destruction onto translucent textiles. She roughly tears holes within the material to correspond to those locations, earlier than fastidiously stitching them again along with color-matched thread. The ensuing work accommodates an online of half-concealed cartography, a peaceable and meticulous report of years of violent erasure.
In “I Went Away and Forgot You…” (2017), Awartani makes use of an identical course of in reverse, this time fastidiously crafting one thing earlier than destroying it herself. She recreated a standard Islamic geometric tiled ground with coloured sand in a compelling act of meditative craftsmanship. Within the accompanying video work, she laid out an identical sand design on the ground of a home in Jeddah’s previous quarter, constructed within the mid-Twentieth century in a Western architectural fashion — a touch upon the colonial overtones of architectural modernization. The movie reveals her quietly and methodically sweeping the Islamic-style ground away, an efficient reminder of how heritage might be destroyed by way of gradual cultural change as a lot as by the sudden ravages of battle.
For this exhibition, Awartani additionally produced “Standing by the Ruins” (2025), a brand new fee recreating the intricately patterned flooring of the Hamam al-Sammara in Gaza, one of many oldest bathtub homes within the area and now believed to have been destroyed by Israeli bombs. Like a lot of her different work, the set up kinds a significant act of remembrance and care — but it surely additionally reveals the frustration and futility of being pressured to “stand by” and watch from afar as Gaza and its folks fall to ruins.
Dana Awartani: Standing by the Ruins continues at Arnolfini (16 Slender Quay, Bristol, United Kingdom) by way of September 28. The exhibition was curated by Gemma Brace in collaboration with the artist.
