The NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery presents the first institutional retrospective of the two artists Hilal and Petti. The exhibition explores the state of “refugeeness,” a condition meant to be temporary, but that has become permanent for many populations. Their art projects departs from the traditional reduction of refugees to victims and instead employs a wider interrogation of the present condition of impermanence and displacement affecting a vast number of people living as guests in host countries. Permanent Temporariness is guest-curated by NYUAD faculty Salwa Mikdadi (Past Head of Professional Development at DCT Abu Dhabi) and co-curated by Bana Kattan, NYUAD Art Gallery Curator. The exhibition features seven installations that explore several themes: The Concrete Tent, Common Assembly, Ramallah Syndrome, The Book of Exile, The Tree School.

Living Room is a performance piece arising out of Hilal’s work with a Syrian refugee, Refugee Heritage - a series of lightbox-mounted photographs of the world’s oldest refugee camps, Dheisheh camp in Bethlehem. Over the last two years, Hilal and Petti led a series of discussions in both refugee camps and elsewhere, on the implications of inscribing refugee history and heritage on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The nomination dossier was published in 2016 in e-flux.

MORE: http://www.decolonizing.ps/site/2018/02/permanent-temporariness-in-abu-dhabi-2/