“What does it mean to come from a home that does not exist today?”

The Project Space’s latest exhibition, Bygones, brings together fourteen artists from different parts of the world in an earnest attempt to curate a space that captures the diasporic longing and ache for a space lost in the (“de-, post-, or pre-realities”)[https://www.nyuad-artgallery.org/en_US/arts-center-project-space/anita-shishani-bygones/] of their countries. The idea comes from the curator, Anita Shishani’s – an NYU Abu Dhabi alumna – experience growing up as a part of the Chechen diaspora. According to Shishani, even after centuries, the Chechen diaspora has held onto its culture and language and she, like many others, was raised with “Nokhchallah” – the Chechen code of honor. Growing up with an idea of what her homeland means has put Shishani in a precarious position where she is unable to reconcile her Chechen identity with the present realities. For her, this feeling is not contained within borders or by ethnicities, rather it is a shared feeling that transcends borders and brings together people from all parts of the world.

Exploring the themes of loss, erasure, survivor’s guilt, and longing through a compelling fusion of traditional and visual art pieces, the exhibition opens with Anuar Khalifi’s Sirr (2023). A larger-than-life, neo-impressionist piece that grapples with the idea of steadiness in a world that’s constantly in flux. Khalifi’s piece centers on a man wrapped in white standing in a desert against the backdrop of a setting sun and his green Mercedes – he has every reason to leave yet he’s unable to move forward like something is holding him back. Right in the center of that part of the room are two platforms atop which are clay figurines of mothers praying for their children’s return, arranged in a line to symbolize pilgrimage.

Alongside materializing the internal struggle driven by a sense of detachment and longing, the exhibition also has pieces like Alla Abdunabi’s Gardens of Paradise (2023) that center colonial violence and displacement. Abdunabi digitally destroyed a collection of archival postcards to remove the stolen ruins in the United Kingdom. Gardens of Paradise shows the absurdity of removing relics from their place of origin to another space where they do not belong. Abdunabi’s work also reflects the sense of emptiness that pervades spaces that have been deprived of their relics.

What stood out to me the most was Bady Dalloul’s A Country Without a Door or Windows (2016-24). A series of ballpoint and marker pen drawings framed in matchboxes, Dalloul’s work shows the helplessness of being an immigrant watching your home burn from afar. He places images of his everyday life in Tokyo – his identity card, his everyday commute and walk, a grocery store – against the horrors of war in Syria, asking the simple question: How does one carry on with their everyday life when their home is burning? Dalloul’s work shows the stark difference in the everydayness of life. For Syrians, the horrors of war were a part of their everyday life like walking to the grocery store was a part of Dalloul’s everyday life in Tokyo.

The exhibition also tries to archive memories. Palestinian Jordanian artist, Hala El Abora’s piece is a series of frames carved in zinc that showcase the Palestinian stories that the artist gathered during her undergraduate. The back of each frame says “I will keep you safe.” One of the frames is cracked and according to Shishani, she deliberately picked that frame to show how difficult of a promise it is to keep someone safe. The exhibition ends with an audio-visual installation separated from the rest of the exhibition by heavy blue curtains. In collaboration with Ansadat Zumsoy, a Chechen archivist based in Germany, it is a three-part installation showcasing the dance, art, and landscape of the North Caucasus. It is a nostalgic space that beckons you to step into the past and also reimagine what the future could hold.

The exhibition is a heartfelt labor of love. Without a guide, the exhibition can very easily border on the themes of nostalgia and romanticism – something that Shishani is not aiming for. However, that also raises the question of whether our relationship with the art we consume is entirely up to our interpretation or shaped by the thought process of the artist.