Imagining Afrabia

About

Celebrating its sixth year, Arab Women Artists Now (AWAN) festival, which runs from the 5 -29 March, offers a rich programme of visual art, music, theatre, comedy, spoken word, panel discussions and workshops by contemporary Arab women artists.  

The festival opens  with Rayan ElNayal’s ‘Imagining Afrabia’ a timeless realm, a third space embodying a shared African and Arab heritage.

The exhibition is a journey through time and space to uncover long lost cities and along the way redesigning a future for those too often forgotten. As an Afro-Arab living in London, Rayan has always been “drawn to the complexities of ethnic hybridity and the ‘third space’ that we often occupy.”

Rayan ElNayal is a Sudanese-British artist/designer interested in multiculturalism in art and design. She uses the skills she obtained from her architecture background to speculate and visualise imaginary Afro-Arab spaces. She is interested in how magic realist techniques can aid in the production of ethnocentric futurisms in the MENA region. ElNayal’s work is heavily influenced by the novel ‘Season of Migration to the North’ by the great Sudanese writer Tayeb Salith and the works of Sudanese artist, Ibrahim El Salahi, founder of the Khartoum School.

ElNayal’s  interest in magic realism and the idea of ‘Afrabia’ started when she was studying Architecture at the University of Greenwich and remains and on-going project.

The curator Ghazaleh Zogheib was born  in France to a Palestinian mother and Lebanese father. Ghazaleh’s work focuses on the relationship between art and learning and development of inclusive art spaces in the UK and abroad. In 2019 she curated 'Intersection' and 'Resilience Exile Mutation', two exhibitions on visual artist Dema One, showcasing his approach to Graffiti, Calligraphy and their use for learning and self-discovery. She currently is developing projects on literary and artistic practices in partnership with King's College London.

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