Iltiqā: Memory & Material: a new collaborative exhibition by Qatari artists and sisters Bouthayna Al Muftah and Shua’a Ali

Created specifically for the gallery’s Fire Station space, the exhibition stages a dialogue between their practices, bringing their distinct visual languages into deliberate convergence. Through the use of woven fabric and stone—materials central to both artists and emblematic of the ephemeral and the enduring—the exhibition explores how identity is carried, transformed, and reimagined across generations.
Across a series of conceptual installations, Al Muftah and Ali reflect on memory, material, and personal interpretation, tracing connections between cultural nostalgia, lived experience, and the delicate tension between fragility and strength. Their works consider how cultural identity is not inherited passively but continuously reassembled through gesture, material, and storytelling.
At the heart of the exhibition is a ground-floor installation that binds the physical matter of the land to the symbolic weave of textile, suggesting that identity is at once grounded and fluid. Upstairs, a second body of collaborative works extends this dialogue through references to folkloric traditions, combining natural and mass-produced materials to foreground how belonging is shaped by touch, history, and imagination. These layered compositions propose that shared heritage is not a fixed narrative but an ever-evolving conversation.