No grand statements, no sweeping conclusions — just ten artists, ten solo presentations, and a world spinning fast beneath their feet. That was the energy of Bawwaba this year. Curated by Mirjam Varadinis, this “gateway” to the Global South brought together practices that felt rooted and restless all at once.
Some artists turned to the past: Nina Kintsurashvili reconstructed memory through fragmented Georgian landscapes; Omar Mismar brought his mosaics from Venice to Dubai, where they spoke of war, erasure, and quiet resistance. Others imagined entirely new futures — like Tomás Saraceno’s cloud cities, floating somewhere between architecture and ecology.
This wasn’t a group show trying to force a theme. It felt more like a chorus — of materials, geographies, and urgencies. There was beauty, yes, but also friction. And maybe that was the point. Bawwaba didn’t claim to have the answers. It just gave us a place to listen.