Curated this year by Odessa Warren and Carine Harmand, Otra Orilla (English: Another Shore) presents new perspectives on the connections between Latin America and the Arab world. 

Alia Farid - Installation view, BLIND DATE 2.0, 2024, Sfeir-Semler Karantina, Beirut, Lebanon 

Abu Dhabi, UAE, 05 November 2024: Abu Dhabi Art has announced that this year’s Gateway exhibition curated by Odessa Warren and Carine Harmand will explore connections between the Arab world and Latin America. The show brings together contemporary artists who open windows into the flows and exchanges between these two regions. Titled Otra Orilla (English: Another Shore), the exhibition will feature works by Emilia Estrada, Alia Farid, Francisca Khamis Giacoman, and Ishtar Yasin Gutiérrez, as well as a new commission by Mandy El-Sayegh. Often reflecting on diasporic experiences, the artists map landscapes and historical narratives, weaving personal and collective memory. Through moving image, textile and installations, they explore how shared political and poetic imaginaries underpin the parallels and intersections between Latin American and Arab contexts. 

“There is relatively little scholarship on the history of art which emerged from the movements between the two regions, or which explores their shared political histories and creative imaginaries. Otra Orilla contributes to the growing body of research on this subject and highlights the work of five contemporary visual artists,” said the co-curators of this exhibition, Odessa Warren and Carine Harmand.  

“It was important for us that the show focuses on artistic practices which explore South-South networks, moving away from centre-periphery narratives. This is also why we have foregrounded Spanish and Arabic as languages, reflected in the title of the show.”   

Among the participating artists, Alia Farid will show recent hand woven rugs from her beautiful and ongoing project Elsewhere. Drawing on a growing archive and extensive research, the works depict the daily life and architecture of the Palestinian diaspora in Puerto Rico. Emilia Estrada, uses multimedia installations to uncover the layers of urban and social fabric underpinning nation-state formation in Latin America, often addressing themes of displacement and occupation. Chilean artist Francisca Khamis Giacoman’s practice draws on her Palestinian heritage and works through installation and performance to recall stories of migration, playing with fiction and materiality. Artist and filmmaker Ishtar Yasin Gutiérrez examines the impacts of political exile and upheaval through her own family history, threading together memory and storytelling. London-based artist Mandy El-Sayegh, known for her multi-disciplinary approach investigates the malleable function of the poetics of solidarity in both contexts, and their bodily dimension, through the creation of an immersive installation that merges painting, video work, sculpture and her characteristic latex based “skins”.       

'Abu Dhabi Art positions itself as a site for knowledge production and sharing, and in this sense we are proud to have commissioned Odessa Warren and Carine Harmand to curate this vital exhibition” stated Dyala Nusseibeh, Abu Dhabi Art Director. 'First proposed as an under-researched topic by one of our exhibitors George Al Ama (Gallery One) in 2023, the exhibition is one of the first globally to explore these connections and is intended to kickstart further research in this field.'  

In addition to the exhibition, a trilingual publication will be released, featuring interviews with the artists and essays by academics and cultural scholars such as Tahia Abdel Nasser, George Al Ama, and Maru Pabón, further enhancing the exhibition's exploration of the artistic and cultural connections between these two regions. 

This programme is now sponsored by Abu Dhabi Art’s Global Partner HSBC.