Walking through the Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art’s eighth edition of the ‘My Favorite Things’ exhibit feels a bit like stepping into conversation between two good friends – the kind of ebbing, flowing conversation that can only occur when like minds give each other the freedom to say anything.
Intimate moments, social commentary, political statements, strong opinions and more can be found upon the gallery’s walls, arranged by aesthetics rather than theme. These pieces play off one another in a way that is at once unexpected and natural. Hager Elsayed’s neon commentary on the strangers who DM her are next to Alaa Abdelrahman’s striking orange and black ‘In Motion’ series, which in turn lead to Raghda Khairy’s intimate portrayal of a breakfast of fresh fruit served in an unmade bed. This is followed by ‘A School for Teaching Very Bad Handwriting’, in which Heba Tarek presents a series of collages covered in stamps, old schoolwork, and tattered High School Musical valentines.
And so the exhibit continues, bouncing from tender family memories with Alaa Ayman’s portraits to Nouran Malek’s visceral, interactive installation on human helplessness and suffering; from Mariam Soliman’s surrealist dreamscapes to Afraa Ahmed’s broken Yemeni qamariya window, a meditation on longing for a homeland and grappling with multiple identities.
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