The Sotheby’s gallery at DIFC in Dubai is hosting the group exhibition Whispers of the Past curated by Aisha Alabbar Gallery in collaboration with Sotheby’s Middle East. The show features five artists - Dr. Najat Makki, Khalid Al Banna, Sara Al Haddad, Sara Aref Ahli, and Samar Hejazi - whose practices interpret memory as a material presence in the present, explore identity as a layered construct, and reveal cultural traces embedded in gestures and materials, without resorting to nostalgic rhetoric in either form or concept. Dr. Najat Makki, a pioneering figure in Emirati art, brings her experience in gestural and symbolic painting, blending abstract realism with landscape memories, her active involvement in workshops with younger artists reflects an ongoing intergenerational dialogue. Khalid Al Banna and artists Sara Al Haddad and Sara Aref Ahli contribute a range of visual expressions, from painting to sculpture and glass, where material itself becomes a register of collective memory, marked by signs of resilience and cultural belonging. Compelling is the work of Samar Hejazi, whose textile and glass installations are both delicate and conceptually rich, investigating personal memory as a woven fabric of migrant identities. Her practice transcends traditional Palestinian embroidery through dispersion, suspension, and the refraction of shapes and shadows. The exhibition layout follows neither a strict chronology nor a rigid thematic structure, but instead creates a space for contemplation and exchange: each work becomes a "narrative whisper" layered over the cultural and historical sediment of the present.
