Alla Abdunabi: Are your memories of me enough for you?

Alla Abdunabi’s first solo exhibition presents a new body of work that critiques and engages with simulacra, a concept used in philosophy and cultural studies to analyse how symbols shape our perceptions of what is accepted as “real.”

The work emphasises the ways that iconography has been preserved and restored across different periods of history. In doing so, it raises crucial questions about how symbols not only endure but gain new significance as they are continually reintroduced into contemporary contexts. This restoration process, rather than simply reviving a historical moment or object, often reinforces the power structures embedded within them.Through the preservation of these icons in art, museums, or public spaces, Abdunabi investigates their influence and how they shape cultural and political narratives into the future.

Central to the exhibition is the narrative of the Barbary lion, whose physical extinction and symbolic immortality serve as the perfect illustration of this phenomenon. Once native to North Africa, the Barbary lion was hunted into extinction by imperial powers, becoming a casualty of both ecological destruction and colonial assertion of dominance over nature. Yet, even in death, the Barbary lion lives on as a potent symbol of imperial power and grandeur.

Alla Abdunabi is participating in the 2025 cycle of the 421 Artistic Development Program, an annual capacity-building initiative that provides early-career artists in the UAE with the opportunity to explore new techniques, test ideas, and create a cohesive body of work for their first solo exhibition.

To 4 May.