Dana Awartani is a Palestinian-Saudi artist who has sought kinship in the knowledge of Indigenous communities across the Arab world, India, and other countries where she developed her work in conversation with craftspeople. Awartani’s installation Come, let me heal your wounds. Let me mend your broken bones (2024) is a requiem for the historical and cultural sites that have been destroyed in the Arab world during wars and by acts of terror. Chillingly, the installation expands with each iteration to make room for newer documentation. This edition adds testimony to the devastation in Gaza and sites that have been flattened indiscriminately through bombings and bulldozers. Awartani tears holes across yards of silk, each rip marking a site. Then she darns – a fading practice that is more intimate yet undervalued compared to patchwork – each gash tenderly as a gesture for healing; the resulting scars symbolise the physical and emotional ones left behind in the real world. The fabric is dipped in herb and spice-based natural dyes that carry medicinal value, using the sacred healing properties embedded in the traditional textile dyeing practices of Kerala, which Awartani spent time learning.
This is the first time the work of Dana Awartani is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Saira Ansari
