Exhibited artists: Sliman Mansour, Samah Shihadi, Michael Halak, Hazem Harb, Aya Haidar, Randa Maddah, Chafa Ghaddar and Tagreed Darghouth.
Routes to Roots draws on James Clifford's concept that understanding one's cultural roots often requires embarking on new journeys or routes. This idea serves as the foundation for Tabari Artspace's multi-artist exhibition at Abu Dhabi Art, curated by Maliha Tabari. The exhibition features a multidisciplinary presentation where artists from different generations and diverse contexts within the Levant and its diaspora engage with themes of land, belonging, cultural identity, and connection, tracing historiographic narratives rooted in the Levant across space and time.
The exhibition features works from the Tabari collection, displayed for the first time, by the celebrated painter Sliman Mansour, a pivotal figure in the Palestinian artistic movement since the 1970s. Mansour's art has long served as a powerful voice for the Palestinian experience, continuously addressing the challenges faced by his community while also celebrating the richness of Palestinian society and its natural landscapes. His displayed works, including the iconic
Sad Tune, evoke the natural Palestinian communities and topographies, offering a poignant commentary on decades of resistance and resilience.
This narrative is further explored by contemporary artist, Hazem Harb and hyperrealists Samah Shihadi and Michael Halak, who unpack the complexities of Palestinian identity. Shihadi’s hyperrealistic drawings, express themes of land, belonging, nostalgia, and tradition, while also engaging with contemporary issues such as gender, body, and dislocation. Halak paints from observation, capturing both the beauty and disruption within his immediate surroundings. His works explore the tension between belonging and estrangement, with hyperrealistic depictions of Palestinian identity embodied in icons of the nation’s produce like olives and figs.
Harb has created a new body of work that employs a research-based approach to reframe Palestine’s past within the context of the present.
Stitching Unity, 2024 is a contemporary collage that interlaces the rich tradition of Palestinian embroidery into a singular context. This piece brings together the diverse embroidery styles of various Palestinian villages, each representing a specific cultural narrative shaped by history, heritage, and the ongoing effects of occupation. The work foregrounds the threads that bind community, culture, and textile traditions in Palestinian visual culture, reflecting the connections between Palestinian villages. Additionally, Harb’s
Fragmentation Series, 2024 forms a commentary on the complex and loaded history of Palestine, emphasising the systematic geographical and historical divisions that have shaped its narrative.
The exhibition also foregrounds perspectives of female diasporic artists originally from Lebanon and the occupied Golan Heights—Tagreed Darghouth, Randa Maddah, Chafa Ghaddar, and Aya Haidar. From their diverse diasporic contexts in London, Paris, and Dubai, these artists reflect on the interconnectedness of shared natural terrains, social worlds, and cultures across the Levant.
Tagreed Darghouth contributes one of her evocative canvases, featuring a pine tree rendered as a self-portrait, symbolising both personal and collective identity. In Lebanon, the pine tree holds a vital place in the country’s visual and cultural identity, much like the cedar, with pines scattered across the mountainous landscape. During the recent financial collapse, however, the price of pine seeds soared, surpassing even the value of gold. This economic shift led to the pine tree’s disappearance from kitchens, creating a surreal contrast that mirrors Darghouth’s perception of Lebanon.
The pine tree, however, carries a more complex symbolism beyond Lebanon. In Palestine, it has come to represent something altogether different, as the pine has increasingly supplanted the region’s ubiquitous olive trees in recent years. Darghouth’s work, as such, becomes a meditation on the transformation of natural and cultural symbols, connecting personal, national, and political narratives.
Randa Maddah presents a book that connects to her recent
Hanging Gardens series, a body of work marked by handwork that explores themes of ecstasy, liberation, and reincarnation, rooted in the Golan Heights. Aya Haidar’s installation unpacks notions of labour, land, and cultural identity, drawing from her Lebanese roots. Meanwhile, Chafa Ghaddar reimagines the body as a landscape in a contemporary fresco, expressing the fragility of the human condition and its intimate relationship with the land through the delicate, ephemeral nature of the medium.