As Syria navigates an uncharted chapter in its history, Ayyam Gallery marks its 20th anniversary with Wavering Hope, a summer collective that brings together thirteen artists whose practices have long borne witness to the nation’s unraveling and its quiet refusals to disappear. On view till 5 September 2025, the exhibition unfolds in the wake of a seismic shift: the unexpected fall of the Assad regime, the lifting of sanctions, and the cautious return of exiled Syrians to cities once consumed by conflict.
Spanning two decades of war, exile, and creative resistance, Wavering Hope offers no easy resolution. Instead, it charts the emotional and psychological landscapes left in the wake of devastation and how artists have not only recorded, but survived history. Featuring works by Kais Salman, Khaled Takreti, Tammam Azzam, Abdalla Al Omari, Othman Moussa, Safwan Dahoul, Thaier Helal, Elias Izoli, Abdul-Karim Majdal Al-Beik, Mohannad Orabi, Nihad Al-Turk, and Yasmine Al Awa, the exhibition explores how memory, grief, irony, and abstraction coalesce into new forms of expression.
In these works, hope appears as neither pure nor whole, it is fragmented, stained, and often doubted. Yet it flickers. It lingers in Tammam Azzam’s layered surfaces, in Safwan Dahoul’s surreal mourning, in Khaled Takreti’s haunted objects, and in the silent gestures of Orabi’s distorted figures. Whether confronting political absurdity or salvaging memory through texture and form, these artists offer a space to imagine what lies beyond ruin.
In this moment of transition, Wavering Hope serves as both a meditation and a mirror, reflecting the fragile, complex possibilities of recovery. It asks: what does it mean to hope, after all this? And how do we begin to rebuild from the inside out?
Location: Ayyam Gallery, Dubai, UAE.
Date: 18 June till 5 September 2025.