"In circulation" | Aisha Alabbar Gallery

- Artworks
  Samar Hejazi
  Maw6ini, 2018
  Threads
  250 x 150 x 400 cm
- Artworks
  Samar Hejazi
  Pasha’s Tent #5, 2026
  Embroidery thread, metal pins
  30 (w) x 40 (h) cm
  33 (w) x 43 (h) cm (Framed)
For her first solo exhibition in the UAE, In Circulation, Samar Hejazi presents a body of work that unfolds through an ongoing tension between structure and dissolution, stability and flux. Working across textile, printmaking, and spatial intervention, Hejazi approaches form not as a fixed entity, but as something contingent—held together through repetition and fragility. The exhibition avoids a singular framework or definitive resolution, instead unfolding through a series of guiding questions: What prevails when support is destabilized? How is meaning reconfigured as foundational systems shift? In what ways do structures—material or internal—operate not through permanence, but through sustained resilience over time? Rather than offering answers, In Circulation holds these questions in suspension, allowing meaning to emerge through material as a system of knowledge, not as medium. Hejazi’s practice engages processes of layering, erasure, and reconstruction.
Materials are stitched, suspended, or fragmented, resisting closure while retaining traces of what came before —where memory, labor, and repetition become embedded within the work, and making becomes inseparable from thinking. Framing the Imaginary introduces one of the exhibition’s central gestures: the frame. It is left intentionally empty, while loose threads extend beyond its edges, softening its boundary and inviting the viewer to imagine what might exist within it. Subtle shifts between black and white and saturated hues of green and blue evoke fragmented landscapes suggesting land and sea — oscillating between presence and absence. When responding to her question of how structures endure over time, Samar Hejazi turned to the Palestinian Museum Digital Archive, selecting documented house deeds and architectural floor plans.
- Artworks
  Samar Hejazi
  Poppies #2, 2026
  Embroidery thread, metal pins
  60 (w) x 80 (h) cm
  63 (w) x 83 (h) cm (Framed)
Presented as part of the Internal Archives series, these works are reworked through her process into layered compositions, where structures remain in flux, resisting a singular reading while positioning home as something constructed and reimagined through time. In Mawtini, Hejazi turns to a familiar national symbol, reworking it through her material language into a spatial intervention. The work does not present the anthem as fixed or complete, but allows it to unravel—fragmented, layered, and partially obscured—creating a quiet tension between recognition and distance. In Circulation looks beyond the constructs of ideals, resisting fixed conclusions and proposing meaning as something continuously formed and reformed through material and time.
Samar Hejazi (b. California, 1987) is a Palestinian-Canadian visual artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans textiles, sculpture, installation, and printmaking. Drawing on diverse global craft traditions, she investigates the shifting nature of perception and meaning-making. Her work often plays with light, shadow, reflection, and movement to create immersive experiences that explore memory, identity, and inner landscapes.

Hejazi’s solo exhibitions include Illusions of Separation at the Aurora Cultural Centre, Canada (2023); Geometries of Difference at Open Studio Project Space, Toronto (2022); An Unravelling at The Plumb, as part of the Toronto Palestine Film Festival (2020); and Maw6ini at Xpace Cultural Centre Project Room, Toronto (2018).

Her work has been featured in major international group exhibitions, including Sila, Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah (2025); Whispers of the Past, Sotheby’s, Dubai (2025); Ihsan: Part of Islamic History, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Canada (2025); Women in War, Intisar Foundation, Kuwait (2024); Sharjah Islamic Arts Festival, Sharjah Art Museum, UAE (2023); Ghostly Makers, Burnaby Art Gallery, Canada (2023); Fragility, MIA Art Collection, Canadian University Dubai (2022); As They Gaze Upon Us, Banat Collective and Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi (2021); and And Other Monuments, Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto (2021).

Hejazi’s participation in auctions includes Legacy Trilogy, ArteEast Benefit Auction, Artsy, New York (2021); International Women’s Day Auction, Embassy Culture House, London, Canada (2021); Empire: Awakenings, Toronto History Museums, Canada (2021); Art with Heart Charity Auction, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2019); and FUTURE PROOF, Open Studio, Toronto (2019), among others.

Hejazi has participated in residencies at Arquetopia in Oaxaca, Puebla, and Cusco, receiving multiple scholarships in recognition of her contributions to contemporary craft-based practices. Her work has been featured in publications such as BlackFlash Magazine, Create! Magazine, Art Queens Volume II, and Studio Magazine (2023).

Hejazi’s works are held in prestigious public and private collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City), Citibank Art Collection, and numerous international private collections.

She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in New Media from Ryerson University, Toronto (2013) and continues to develop a visual language rooted in the personal, the poetic, and the perceptual.

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.

Reject non essential