Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had
2022
Exhibition: Sculpture, works on paper, writing, and digital map projections
This body of work takes as its starting point Al-Wadi, an oil painting made in the early 1980s by the artist’s late father, portraying an imagined Bedouin encampment near Qusayr Amra, the Umayyad castle in the desert of Jordan. Through installation, sculpture, works on paper, writing, and map projections, the works both situate and destabilize systems of understanding, measuring the painting against extractive modes of knowledge production that had already marked the site. Rather than rely on research as method, Bishouty leans into obscurity, treating misunderstanding as a generative lens through which objects, images, and ways of seeing may intertwine and unfold.
Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had, 2022, at Gallery 44: Centre for Contemporary Photography Toronto, 2022 in collaboration with SAVAC - Photo: Darren Rigo
Critical Essays
What Constitutes a Landscape? Curatorial essay by Toleen Touq and Lillian O’Brien Davis, Gallery44, 2022 Read the full text [PDF]
Intergenerational Dialogue and Late Style in the Palestinian Diaspora, Tammer El-Sheikh, Gallery 44Read the full essay [PDF]
Credits
Curators: Toleen Touq and Lillian O’Brien Davis
Photography: Darren Rigo
Thanks to: The Toronto Arts Council, The Ontario Arts Council
