Ways of Seeing at Kulturnest: Tracing Stories in Salt, Pigment, and Memory
This summer, Kulturnest opens its doors to "Ways of Seeing," a contemplative solo exhibition by Marwa Abu Khalil, which invites visitors to look closer at nature’s hidden textures, the traces of ancestry, and the fragile dialogue between the material and the emotional.
In Ways of Seeing, Marwa arranges her works in pairs that face each other like whispers across a room. Abstract canvases where salt, earth pigments, gum arabic, and watercolor spill, crack, and settle like landscapes shaped by time and tide. And smaller, more intimate pieces, marbled papers, pastel washes, and soft lines that distill everyday emotions and quiet moments.
Each pair balances the raw with the reflective. Themes like Eruption, Flow, Fragrance, Connection, Grace, Surrender, and Decay ripple through the works, reminding us that nature and human experience are inseparable and always in conversation.
Salt, pigment, paper, and dried ivy: these are not just artistic mediums, but living remnants of Marwa’s heritage. Since 2018, she has revived traditional crafts, including Arabic illumination, herbal dyeing, marbling, and basket weaving. These practices, passed down through matriarchal lines - from her grandmother’s woven carpets to her mother’s storytelling - shape every brushstroke and paper edge in Ways of Seeing.
This exhibition is not about grand gestures but about the subtle poetry of what we overlook: how salt maps a coastline, how pigment seeps into paper like rain into soil, how handmade marbled patterns echo ancient manuscripts. Ways of Seeing asks us to slow down and witness what dissolves, emerges, and connects.
Why Visit?
Ways of Seeing is for anyone who wants to be reminded that culture lives in small gestures and humble materials. It’s a gentle celebration of craft, memory, and nature’s quiet power to erode, nourish, and renew.
*Ways of Seeing runs from June 27 to July 16, 2025, at Kulturnest, Sin El Fil.
Opening Night: June 27, 2025, from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
On view: June 27 - July 16, 2025
• June: Tuesdays to Saturdays, 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM
• July: Tuesdays to Fridays, 11:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Free Entrance
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