Art Africa Magazine

Alla Abdunabi pursues the potential existence of matter. Her practice activates fragments - organic and inorganic, real and imagined-revealing their latent energy and inner life. At times, she traces histories; at others, she creates new objects or reconfigures existing ones. Shifting between the roles of caretaker and disruptor, she urges materials to speak in the present. Her work is rooted in attunement, engaging with the contradictions, coincidences, and responsibilities embedded within the materials.

Faisal Al Hassan, Director of 421 Arts Campus, writes in the catalogue foreword for Abdunabi's exhibition, "Alla's work offers a deeply reflective engagement with history, iconography, and the structures that shape our understanding of truth... this exhibition engages with the concept of simulacra the ways in which representations shape our perception of reality".

Abdunabi's practice is rooted in sculptural interventions. In Are Your Memories of Me Enough for You? incorporates salt sculptures, ceramic castings, human teeth, concrete reliefs, and oil paintings on wood panels. The exhibition examines how colonial violence extends beyond physical subjugation, embedding itself in visual culture and institutional memory.

The artist references the Barbary Lion throughout the exhibition, exploring the lion as a simultaneous extinction and symbolic survival case. Once native to North Africa, the species was wiped out by imperial forces, a casualty of ecological destruction and colonial domination over nature. Yet, in death, the lion persists as an enduring emblem of imperial power. Even as the lion's body disappears, its image remains-a reanimated tool of power. The exhibition questions the ethics of restoring and displaying colonial artefacts by presenting the lion as a remnant of destruction and a symbol of resilience. It invites reflection on the more profound implications of "care" within historical and contemporary contexts.