Past Through Here is a collective exhibition on display at Maraya Art Centre, open to the public until 20 March 2026. Hosted in collaboration with the Barjeel Art Foundation, the show presents a rich selection of modern and contemporary Arab art drawn from one of the region’s most significant private collections. Curated by students from the American University of Sharjah as part of a semester-long Arts Practicum course, the exhibition invites visitors to reflect on memory, movement, and transformation as forces shaping how we carry the past into the present and future.
The works on view, which include paintings, sculptures, photographs, and installations, are united by a sense of how personal and collective histories intertwine, diverge, and resonate. Together, they suggest that memory is layered rather than linear: a tapestry of lived experience, aspiration, and cultural imprint that continually re-emerges across time and geography.
Featured in the exhibition are iconic works by artists whose practices span a range of media and approaches. Among the participants are Syrian artists Khaled Akil, Tammam Azzam, and Khaled Jarrar. Akil explores identity and narrative through complex visual layering that blurs the boundaries between figuration and conceptual strategies. Azzam is widely recognised for his poignant reflections on displacement, conflict, and cultural memory. Jarrar, who centres his practice on Palestine, examines the social and political realities of everyday life under occupation while activating the transformative potential of artistic intervention.
On view are also works by Saudi artists Alia Ahmad and Manal AlDowayan, Emirati artist Farah Al Qasimi, and Lebanese artist Stéphanie Saadé. Ahmad’s art is shaped by the desert and industrial landscapes of Riyadh. Her dreamlike compositions reinterpret Saudi terrain through linear forms and vibrant colour, emphasising the tension between vast emptiness and lush detail. AlDowayan, who works across photography, video, sound, sculpture, installation, and participatory projects, addresses themes of collective memory, archival absence, tradition, and the representation of Saudi women.
Farah Al Qasimi, who is not only an artist but also a photographer, filmmaker, and musician, is known for her richly saturated images that capture the surreal within everyday life in the Gulf and the USA. Her practice investigates the entanglements of colonial history, consumer culture, and contemporary identity, revealing subtle traces of power, migration, and cultural exchange.
Stéphanie Saadé approaches time and place through a poetic and conceptual lens, constructing works that hover between the intimate and the universal. Through gestures of suggestion, metaphor, and at times deliberate absence, she invites viewers to engage with fragments that unfold into broader narratives.
The featured creatives also include:
- Palestinian painter, graphic designer, and sculptor Abed Abdi;
- Emirati painter Abdul Qader Al Rais;
- Moroccan artist Achraf Touloub;
- Emirati artists Ammar Al Attar and Obaid Suroor;
- Kuwaiti artist Ibrahim Ismail; Egyptian painter Inji Efflatoun (1924-1989);
- Kuwaiti artist Jafar Islah;
- Lebanese filmmakers and artists Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige;
- Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour;
- American artist, filmmaker, and researcher Marwa Arsanios;
- Qatari interdisciplinary designer Maryam Al-Homaid;
- Egyptian modernist Menhat Helmy (1925-2004);
- Saudi artists Mohamed Farea and Mohammad Seleem (1939-1997);
- Lebanese artist Mohammed-Said Baalbak;
- Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al Ali;
- Iraqi artists Nazar Yahya and Sadik Al Fraji;
- Iraqi-Dutch multidisciplinary visual artist Nedim Kufi;
- Jordanian-Palestinian artist Walid Al Wawi;
- Franco-Moroccan artist Yto Barrada;
- and Aleppo-born multimedia artist Youssef Akil, Khaled Akil’s father.
To learn more about Past Through Here, please go to the exhibition’s official web page.
In addition, you might be interested in visiting Urdu Worlds at Ishara Art Foundation and Rays, Ripples, Residue at 421 Arts Campus.
