On 23rd September 2021, Gazelli Art House London held a Zoom conversation in conjunction with the recent exhibition of Naqsh Collective, Unlived Moments, as the artists discussed Middle Eastern heritage, untold histories and craft. Panellists included:
Naqsh Collective - founded in 2009 in Amman, Jordan, by two sisters Nisreen and Nermeen Abudail. Their name means “engraving: the first form of art done by a human to leave his print”. In 2018, the duo was shortlisted for the Jameel Prize 5.
Venetia Porter - senior curator at the British Museum for the collections of Islamic and Contemporary Middle East art and Honorary Research Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She studied Arabic and Islamic Art at the University of Oxford, and her PhD from the University of Durham is on the history and architecture of Medieval Yemen. She was the lead curator for the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World (2018), and her exhibitions at the British Museum include Word into Art (2006, Dubai 2008), Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam (2012) and most recently Reflections: contemporary art of the Middle East and North Africa (2021). She is the author with Natasha Morris and Charles Tripp, of the accompanying book published by British Museum Press (2020)
Aimee Dawson - Deputy Digital Editor at the The Art Newspaper and a co-producer of the Week in Art and A brush with... podcasts. She specialises in art from the Middle East and North Africa, having studied Arabic and Middle East studies and contemporary African and Asian art.
