Bygones

Anastasia A, Alla Abdunabi, Aya Afaneh, Houssam Ballan, Bady Dalloul, Hala El Abora, Zaina El-Said, Syed Hussain, Diana Ishaqat, Pouran Jinchi, Anuar Khalifi, Yoonsik Chico Park, Anita Shishani, and Ansadat Zumsoy

What does it mean to come from a home that does not exist today?

The artworks in this exhibition examine the idea of true foreigners, whose homes that are left behind exist not only in a different place, but also a different time. Often, these homelands are described as pre-, post-, or de-, implying that such a great change occurred that the country became unrecognizable, losing its old character. Remembering these places bound to a certain age can offer insight into inheritances of trauma, taste, conviction, loyalties, ailments, and adaptations.

Those fleeing their motherland take with them an understanding of it from the period of their departure — an understanding that can last across numerous generations raised elsewhere. Many artists featured in this exhibition are indigenous to the place they had to leave, with ancestral connections to their land spanning centuries, even millennia. Children of diaspora may believe that the golden age has passed, the future will be worse, and they will never return. Nonetheless, many find solace in that specific homeland bound to a certain time: an imagined time shelter. Many come to the UAE, a country of limitless potential, from homelands that exist solely in the past. Bygones considers a specific type of belonging molded by a lack of hope for the future and paired with an immense devotion to one’s ancestors and culture.

Bygones was born out of a longing for community. The exhibition hopes to foster connections among those who share the ache of missing home. In an act of community, the artists Anastasia A, Alla Abdunabi, Aya Afaneh, Houssam Ballan, Bady Dalloul, Hala El Abora, Zaina El-Said, Syed Hussain, Diana Ishaqat, Pouran Jinchi, Anuar Khalifi, Yoonsik Chico Park, and Ansadat Zumsoy generously contributed their work; some also offered their ideas and perspectives, enriching the exhibition further. This is a deeply personal exhibition for curator Anita Shishani, who included her own paintings, weaving her voice into the dialogue visually.

This exhibition invites visitors to gather, reflect, connect, and sit together with the discomfort of cultural erasure: they might have more in common than they imagine. Bygones reflects on the trials and tribulations of holding onto a homeland when one relates wholeheartedly to what it once was, but what it is no longer.

Image: Ansadat Zumsoy and Anita Shishani, still from Bygones, 2024. Three channel video projection. Courtesy of the artists

Curated by

• Anita Shishani, Artist, curator, researcher