JEDDAH.- Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige and Slavs and Tatars new commissions are on view now at the 2nd Islamic Arts Biennale, And All That is In Between, curated by Muhannad Shono with Joanna Chevalier and Amina Diab as Associate Curators.
Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige
Commissioned by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation for the Islamic Arts Biennale 2025, I Was Looking At The Garden When I Saw The Sky (Jeddah) by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige underlines the Biennale’s theme of the “In-Between.” The work lifts above the ground a garden patch that forms part of the outdoor layout of the Biennale spaces. The suspended garden references soilless, hydroponic agriculture techniques and questions entanglements of context, extraterritoriality, and globalization. It stems from the artists’ exploration of soils and subsoils and their interpretive techniques in revealing the geologic underground to uncover social histories and palimpsests beneath the ground. The raised garden is held by a column which shows the archaeological and geological as possible narratives of Jeddah’s subsoil to visualise local timescales and processes of sedimentation. The installation evokes multiple cycles of construction, destruction, and regeneration. The artists point at the ruptures and transmissions of undergrounds where life interacts within complex ecosystems, which are sensitive to environmental and historical changes.
Filmmakers and artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige work between photography, installations, video, and cinema, whether documentary or fiction films. They question storytelling, the fabrication of images and representations, the construction of imaginaries and the writing of history. Selected solo exhibitions include Messages with(out) a code, The Third Line, Dubai, UAE (2022) I Stared At Beauty So Much..., Frac Corse, Corsica, France (2020); On Scams, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada (2019), Unconformities, Onassis Cultural Center, Fast Forward Festival, Athens, Greece (2018); Two suns in a sunset, IVAM, Valencia, Spain (2017); Se Souvenir de la Lumiere, Musée national Pablo Picasso, La Guerre et la Paix, Vallauris, France (2017). They have been awarded the prestigious Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2017 for their project Unconformities. Hadjithomas and Joreige are both very involved in Metropolis, Cinematheque Beirut and are the co-founders of Abbout Productions with Georges Schoucair.
Slavs and Tatars
Commissioned by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation for the Islamic Arts Biennale 2025, Slavs and Tatars' Mellon محلة Mahallah is a new large-scale installation inspired by melons, coveted throughout Eurasia as luscious, sugary yields in an otherwise increasingly barren season. The artists have created a winter melon garden in the shape of the Kufic letter Qāf (ق, referencing “قرأ” - “to read”) when seen from above—a gathering space to decipher the fruit for its uncertain meteorological, metaphysical, or cosmological messages. Forming the heart of the letter, an altar-like interior space hosts a multitude of handblown, melon-shaped glass lamps, based on different varieties of winter melons. The installation evokes not only wind towers—traditional ventilation structures across the Gulf—but also notions of hospitality and communion.
The collective Slavs and Tatars was co-founded in 2006 as an informal reading group. Blending pop visuals, esoteric traditions, oral rituals, and scholarly analysis, the common thread are the political and personal stories of Eurasia, which the collective shares enthusiastically. They started as a reading group, and organically moved into publications, lecture-performances, and installations that wittily question our understanding of language, ritual, and identity. Recent solo exhibitions include Simurgh Self-Help, The Third Line, Dubai (2025); Simurgh, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden (2025); Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi’ite Showbiz, M HKA, Antwerp (2023); Public Commission, Hayward Gallery, London (2021); and Public Commission, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2021). They participated at 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2023); Colomboscope, Colombo (2022); Lahore Biennale (2020); 58th La Biennale di Venezia (2019); having curated the 33rd Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana (2019).
