On display at Aisha Alabbar Gallery until 15 July 2026, In Circulation is a solo exhibition by Palestinian-Canadian artist Samar Hejazi that examines the fragile relationship between memory, materiality, and transformation. Curated by Nadine Khoury, the show offers a nuanced reflection on how identities, histories, and places are continuously reshaped through time. Rather than presenting fixed narratives or definitive conclusions, the exhibition unfolds as a series of open-ended inquiries into resilience, loss, reconstruction, and the persistence of meaning amid change.
In Circulation is grounded in a tension that runs throughout Hejazi’s practice: the coexistence of stability and instability, structure and dissolution. Her artworks often appear caught in a state of becoming, suspended between construction and decay. Threads unravel, surfaces fragment, images fade, and forms seem to hover on the brink of disintegration. Yet this apparent fragility is not a sign of collapse. Instead, it becomes a metaphor for adaptation and endurance. Through processes of stitching, layering, erasure, and reconstruction, Hejazi reveals how meaning is continually produced and renewed rather than permanently fixed.
A recurring concern throughout In Circulation is the question of what remains when familiar frameworks are destabilised. The exhibition asks how individuals and communities navigate shifting foundations and how memory survives when physical structures disappear or transform. Hejazi approaches materials as active participants in the creation of knowledge. Textile fragments, embroidered surfaces, printed images, and architectural references become sites where personal and collective histories are stored, altered, and reimagined. In this sense, the show invites visitors to consider memory not as a static archive but as a living process that is constantly revised through experience.
Several bodies of work on view illustrate the breadth of Hejazi’s material vocabulary. Series such as In Circulation, Framing the Imaginary, Internal Archives – Floor Plans, Pasha’s Tent, Fatma’s Amulet, and Poppies demonstrate her ability to move fluidly between abstraction and representation while maintaining a strong connection to craft traditions. Embroidery thread, cotton fabric, monotype printing, and found archival materials are combined in works that blur the boundaries between image, object, and environment. These pieces draw attention to the physical traces left by human hands and emphasise the role of labour, repetition, and care in preserving memory.
An important aspect of the exhibition stems from Hejazi’s engagement with archival material connected to Palestinian history. Drawing on documents and architectural plans from the Palestinian Museum Digital Archive, the artist reinterprets records of homes and domestic spaces through textile interventions and layered compositions. These archival references become catalysts for reflection on displacement, belonging, and the fluid nature of home. The resulting works suggest that home is not merely a physical structure but an evolving concept shaped by memory, movement, and lived experience. Through this transformation of archival material, Hejazi creates poetic spaces where personal narratives intersect with broader cultural histories.
The exhibition’s visual language is characterised by repetition and accumulation. Patterns emerge through countless stitches, layered marks, and overlapping forms. These repetitions underscore the provisional nature of meaning and how understanding is built through continual revision. Hejazi’s art pieces encourage slow looking, prompting viewers to trace connections between visible surfaces and hidden histories. Shadows, reflections, and subtle shifts in texture create moments of ambiguity that challenge straightforward interpretation. In doing so, the exhibition highlights the productive potential of uncertainty and incompleteness.
In Circulation offers a thoughtful meditation on continuity amid change. Through intricate material processes and layered conceptual frameworks, Samar Hejazi examines how memories are preserved, transformed, and transmitted across time. The show embraces complexity, ambiguity, and movement. It presents resilience not as permanence but as the capacity to adapt, rebuild, and create meaning within conditions of uncertainty.
About the artist
Samar Hejazi (b. 1987, California, USA) is a Dubai-based artist whose practice encompasses textiles, sculpture, installation, and printmaking. She studied photography at Parsons School of Art and Design (2009) and earned a BFA in New Media, Image Arts from Ryerson University (2013). The artist has developed an international reputation for her innovative engagement with craft-based methodologies and questions of perception, memory, and identity. Her work often explores how materials can retain traces of individual and collective experiences, creating immersive environments that encourage reflection on the relationship between past and present.
Hejazi has exhibited extensively in Canada, the UAE, and internationally. Her recent solo exhibitions include Illusions of Separation (Aurora Cultural Centre, Aurora, Canada, 2023); Geometries of Difference (Open Studio Project Space, Toronto, Canada, 2022); and An Unravelling, presented during the Toronto Palestine Film Festival (2020). Her work has also appeared in many major group exhibitions at institutions and events, including Abu Dhabi Art, Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah, Sotheby’s DIFC, the Sharjah Islamic Arts Festival, and Warehouse421 in Abu Dhabi.
Hejazi has received a number of accolades, including the Art Business Accelerator Grant (Artwork Archive and Redline, Denver, USA, 2021) and the Arquetopia Residency Scholarship (Cusco, Peru, 2019). In 2026, she was commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute to design mirrored mannequin heads for its Spring exhibition Costume Art, curated by Andrew Bolton — a landmark commission that made her the first Palestinian artist to work with the Met in this capacity.
To get more information about In circulation, please visit the official web page of the exhibition.
You might also be interested in visiting Five Painters at Taymour Grahne Projects.
