Cemetery of Martyrs, 2026
commissioned by Nottingham Contemporary, UK; in collaboration with KM21 The Hague, Netherlands and Peer Gallery, London, UK.
Cemetery of Martyrs by Dala Nasser (b. 1990, Beirut, Lebanon) transforms the exhibition space into a symbolic graveyard - a collective site of mourning, remembrance, and reflection. By using the technique of frottage alongside cyanotype photographic printing processes, Nasser presents a constellation of paintings that honour the graves of influential artists, writers, poets, filmmakers, historians, and journalists across Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and England who dreamt of and fought for cultural, social, and political independence. For this new commission, Nasser has embodied the role of archivist, architect and cartographer to chart, document and configure a space to unearth and gather buried voices of the past. Black and green mourning fabrics dyed and marked with natural elements from the earth – shells, seeds, ash, and crushed malachite - are layered amongst cyan blue and charcoal black fabrics. Charcoal rubbings transcribe the surfaces of known tombs, with cyanotype treated fabrics featuring names in Arabic written in sand, representing those whose graves are unreachable or unknown.
The fabrics are draped over a wooden trellis in a gridded formation that echoes the walkways and rows of a graveyard. An immersive soundscape featuring field recordings collected from cemeteries grounds us in a familiar yet obscure site, further enveloping visitors in a space of remembrance. Nasser’s exploration into alternative forms of image making with natural materials marks a connection between the land as witness to histories forgotten or lost, and the importance of mark making – of documenting – to ensure important legacies prevail.
The exhibition commemorates cultural figures from the Arab Renaissance, or Nahda, in the mid-nineteenth century, through to the present day whose work and ideas resisted political domination and occupation. This era unfolded primarily within Arab regions of the Ottoman Empire, when the Ottomans sought to bridge east and west by imposing a series of reforms on their subjects. In retaliation to this control, new creative and intellectual currents were generated by those who sought to reform sovereignty (the authority of a state to rule over its own territory and its people) by placing moral and legal limits on imperial authority (the control and domination of the empire).
Central to this shift was the notion that people were to be recognised as citizens with rights, rather than subjects of empire. These ideas were further cultivated by emerging technologies, namely the printing press, newspapers, modern literature and the study of art and science. With these new conditions, liberatory and independent thinking were able to flourish, and self-determination (the right to live free from foreign rule) became a hallmark of revolutionary ideas across West Asia.
Figures honoured in Cemetery of Martyrs range from Lebanese-born Ottoman writer and journalist, Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq (b. 1806, Beirut, d. 1887, Istanbul) to the pioneering Palestinian visual artist Laila Shawa (b. 1940, Gaza, d. 2022, London), often referred to as the “Mother of Arabic Revolutionary Art”. Nasser traces histories of the deceased and their legacies through place, natural materials and process; a spiritual act to further connect to voices of the past. While each rubbing is a poetic, affective transcription or reconstruction of a grave, they also function as traces of the artist’s body in motion, of the physicality and labour required to excavate and reproduce cultural memory. Referring to these figures as martyrs draws attention to the rejection and persecution of their names, stories and ideas by colonial and Eurocentric frameworks that have previously obscured or erased. Accompanying the exhibition is a booklet featuring individual obituaries to honour each figure, recording their legacies in memoriam as a means of preservation beyond the physical cemetery.
In seeking to mend what history has left undone, Cemetery of Martyrs is a place to mourn, learn, and reaffirm the power of culture and humanity to connect us to histories of resistance and renewal, finding hope in the past to forge new pathways of thought and action for the future.
Architecture by MüllerAprahamian