By the Movement of All Things, a group exhibition curated by Hamzeh Alfarahneh and featuring works by Igshaan Adams, Hamra Abbas, Diana Al-Hadid, James Webb, Bronwyn Katz, Timo Nasseri, and Moshekwa Langa. Hosted by Lawrie Shabibi until 6 January 2026, the exhibition explores how abstraction can become a site of encounter, prompting viewers to engage through intuition, memory, and lived experience.
Building on Alfarahneh’s ongoing research into Global Majority abstraction – most recently examined in Ex Situ, his survey of South African abstract practices – the exhibition traces connections between artists working in South Africa and the Middle East. Rather than relying on established regional narratives, the presentation highlights shared sensibilities and points of contact that complicate conventional art-historical boundaries.
For this iteration, Alfarahneh introduces the idea of “structures of knowledge” as a curatorial framework. This approach considers forms of knowing that emerge outside institutional systems, whether rooted in gesture, lineage, or embodied memory. Knowledge is imagined as layered and interlinked, with each artwork contributing to a shifting, provisional architecture of understanding. In a gallery setting, this model becomes particularly resonant in its focus on movement as a plane of thought; how motion, vibration, and gesture leave traces that carry meaning.
The participating artists bring this framework to life through diverse material languages. Adams’s woven and sculptural works map memory and spirituality through texture and form. Al-Hadid’s sculptural structures hover between solidity and dissolution. Webb’s installations create sensory thresholds that reorient perception. Katz and Nasseri approach structure through distinct material vocabularies – one tactile and intuitive, the other geometric and pared back – while Langa’s multi-medium works draw upon accumulated marks, traces, and residues of action. Abbas’s marble sculptures extend these concerns into reflections on landscape, time, and transformation.
Together, the exhibition positions abstraction as an active mode of knowledge-keeping, where movement becomes both method and memory, shaping new pathways for understanding.
Location: Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai, UAE
Date: 16 November 2025 until 6 January 2026