RETURNS

November 21 - January 3, 2025 

Opening Reception, November 21, 2024, 5–7 pm

Presenting recent works by Rama Ghanem, Colm Keady-Tabbal, Naeem Mohaiemen, and Ridwana Rahman, Returns follows diasporic artists’ repeated return to histories of their origin geographies–Lebanon, Ireland, Palestine, and Bangladesh. Engaging with the archival impulse, the artists consider the politics and practices of collecting. They grapple with family histories that have been forgotten, or overlooked, by dominant narratives. Echoing Saidiya Hartman’s consideration of “working with and against the archive,” these artists unravel a machinery of memorialization that can perpetuate ideologies of systems of power as fact. Straddling film, photography, mixed media, and sound, the works in Returns examine how family lore, collective memory, and personal history intersect with, and contradict, hegemonic narratives–ultimately reimagining shared histories from the global south. 

 For further information, please contact the gallery at neimancenter@columbia.edu.

For more information, please feel free to email us or call 212-854-7641.