Permanent Temporariness is guest-curated by NYUAD faculty Salwa Mikdadi, who is among the foremost historians of modern art from the Arab world. It is co-curated by Bana Kattan, NYUAD Art Gallery Curator, who recently co-curated the exhibition Invisible Threads: Technology and its Discontents (NYUAD) and But We Cannot See Them: Tracing a UAE Art Community 1988-2008 (NYUAD). 

The exhibition will feature seven installations, three of which are beyond the gallery walls. It reactivates five of the artists’ signature installations to date, including The Concrete Tent, Common Assembly, Ramallah Syndrome, The Book of Exile, and The Tree School.

Two of the artworks were developed specifically for this show, from the artists’ current research projects. Living Room is a performance piece arising out of Hilal’s work with a Syrian refugee couple who became active hosts in their refugee camp living room in Boden, Sweden. In her hosting performance, Hilal activates our awareness of what they call “the right to host.” Refugee Heritage is a series of lightbox-mounted photographs taken by UNESCO photographer Luca Capuano at one of the world’s oldest refugee camps, Dheisheh camp in Bethlehem. Over the last two years, Hilal and Petti led a series of discussions in both refugee camps and elsewhere, on the implications of inscribing refugee history and heritage on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The nomination dossier was published in 2016 in e-flux.

Bana Kattan, Curator at NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery commented: “Permanent Temporariness embodies our vision at the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery, which is to organise exhibitions that connect with important topics, globally. Also, this is our first exhibition that sees performances and artworks installed beyond the Gallery walls, with the NYU Abu Dhabi campus providing a unique backdrop.”