Tracking a Vanishing Landscape is the first collective show of artists from Libya to be presented at Casa Árabe. The exhibition includes works created using a wide range of techniques, including photography, installations, video and painting, and in them the 12 artists presented in the show—8 women and 4 men—reflect upon memory, heritage and identity in a complex context in which the relationship with the past and recent recent history of Libya are examined in light of the recent events affecting that country.

The exhibition’s curator, Najlaa El-Ageli, founder of the entity Noon Arts Projects, has devoted the recent years of her career to giving visibility and a voice to the art and contemporary creation scene from her country of origin, Libya. It is a scene which is little known in Europe, but not for that reason any less relevant, if we bear in mind the role which culture and creators can play as motors driving civil society in a complex environment of upheaval like that being experienced in today’s Libya.

Memory as a vehicle which makes it possible to bring the past into the present articulates a large factor in the works on display at this show, in which we can find references to items like the family photo album, certain icons from architecture and the heritage of Tripoli, and the remembrance of some of the episodes in Libya’s modern and contemporary history. Like an odyssey, they have left behind an indelible mark on the collective memory.

The exhibition could be seen in London throughout the spring of 2018, containing works by Mohamed Al Kharrubi, Alla Budabbus, Marcella Mameli Badi, Najla Shawket Fitouri, Hadia Gana, Mohamed Abumeis, Huda Abuzeid, Laila Sharif, Arwa Assad, Yousef Fetis, Elham Ferjani and Takwa Abo Barnosa.

Casa Árabe would like to express its gratitude for the cooperation and promotion provided by the Repsol Foundation, partners for this exhibition, as well as the support given by Aresbank.