In the Artists' Rooms at the Jameel Arts Centre, the landscape does not appear as a stable scenario. Desertification, fragmented geographies, diasporic memories, and territories in transformation permeate the works of Lulua Alyahya, Shezad Dawood, and Walid Siti, the protagonists of the new edition of the exhibition program dedicated to contemporary international practices. In recent years, the Jameel Arts Centre has consolidated an exhibition program attentive to artistic practices from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, favoring projects that intertwine historical research, ecology, and political reflection. This edition of Artists' Rooms continues in this direction, while avoiding a didactic interpretation of the themes addressed. The project does not construct a traditional group exhibition, but rather assigns each artist an autonomous space. The three projects thus unfold as distinct environments, yet permeated by common issues: the relationship between humans and territory, the perception of environmental change, and the memory of places marked by conflict, migration, or economic transformation. Lulua Alyahya's work focuses on the transformations of the Gulf landscape and the relationship between the natural environment and urbanization. Through installations and organic materials, the artist creates works that reflect on the region's ecological vulnerability and the way modernization is changing the perception of desert space. Shezad Dawood's practice is different. For years, he has developed interdisciplinary projects involving film, installation, scientific research, and visual culture. His works often address issues related to environmental collapse, technological networks, and the cultural consequences of globalization. At the Jameel Arts Centre, Dawood continues this research through works that intertwine speculative narrative and geopolitical reflection. Walid Siti's practice, on the other hand, is informed by his experience of exile and the memory of the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. His works, suspended between painting, sculpture, and installation, transform the mountain landscape into a symbolic form linked to resistance, loss, and cultural survival. The mountains thus become images of memory rather than precise geographical representations.
