This round table discussion will analyze the role played by artists and producers of culture in Libya, in light of the events and uncertainties affecting the country today. We will attempt to learn more about the context in which art and creation take place in a country whose modern and contemporary history has been complex and is quite unknown to the Spanish public. The round table discussion participants will be analyzing the most important problems affecting cultural institutions and artists in Libya, and they will debate over the prospects for young creators who have spent their careers living under the pressure of the revolutionary movements of 2011, known as the “Arab Springs,” having used their work and activities to contribute to building a sense of citizenship and participation.

Conference information sheet

Najlaa El-Ageli, the exhibition curator, was the founder of the entity Noon Arts Projects, which is devoted to increasing the visibility and voice of the art and contemporary creation scene in her country of origin, Libya. Intervening in the round table discussion along with her are two of the artists featured in the exhibition Tracking a Vanishing Landscape, who have traveled to Madrid from Tripoli just for this purpose.

Hadia Gana is a specialist in ceramics and installations. She creates works with a major social component and brings up topics involving Libyan society, such as corruption, post-revolutionary trauma and the collective memory of Libya’s modern social and cultural history. Her work has been exhibited on many occasions outside of Libya. She is currently the director of the Ali Gana Foundation, created in memory of her father, a well-known Libyan intellectual who worked to preserve the country’s cultural heritage. The foundation is preparing the opening of the Ali Gana Museum in Tripoli, with the mission of offering an artistic, cultural and educational space open to everyone.

Takwa Abo Barnosa, the youngest artist in the exhibit and also a resident of Tripoli, is a specialist in Arabic calligraphy, an art which combines all types of mixed techniques, above all the digital printing of images from current times and of journalistic interest about Libya. In her work, Barnosa deals with the current state of political chaos, anarchy and widespread disorder. In 2015, along with Abdullah Turkie, she founded the WaraQ Art Foundation, a non-governmental organization which strives to strengthen the cultural and artistic cooperation and sharing between the Middle East and North Africa.