3L Gallery is pleased to present Habitat. Hortus Conclusus, a group exhibition of contemporary Middle Eastern art, featuring works by Elnaz Javani (Iran), Asma Yousef Al Ahmed (UAE), Alymamah Rashed (Kuwait), and Zeina Abdullah (UAE). Among the first exhibitions of contemporary Middle Eastern art to be
presented in Russia, Habitat. Hortus Conclusus offers Moscow audiences an opportunity to encounter the compelling artistic voices from the Middle East region.
Habitat. Hortus Conclusus is a curatorial project by Marina Baisel, and Elena Belolipetskaia presented with the support of 3L Gallery, exploring the themes of identity through the metaphor of the garden as both a personal and cultural landscape. The exhibition engages with the concept of the inner habitat – a metaphysical space where personal and socio-cultural selfhood is formed, highlighting how individuals carry their heritage within themselves, becoming living bearers of culture.
Contemporary Middle Eastern artists navigate personal histories, social practices, and regional traditions within the context of globalization and rapid urban transformation in the Gulf, creating a dialogue between past and present, private and collective. The dialogue is naturally infused with the poetic sensibility characteristic of the region, reflecting how the encounter and migration of images and traditions generate new meanings, forms of identity, and a sense of home.
In this sense, the metaphor of the garden, moving across epochs and civilizations, resonates with historical and philosophical traditions: the medieval hortus conclusus, the Persian pairidaeza as a prototype of paradise, and Augustine of Hippo’s concept of the ‘inner man’ – all serve as lenses through which the inner world and cultural landscape are reflected in contemporary art.
In her works, Emirati artist Asma Yousef Al Ahmed transforms the mountainous landscapes of Ras Al Khaimah into visual structures where geological memory intersects with traces of human intervention amid the region’s rapid urbanization. Her landscapes become spaces where personal history, ecological processes, and the cultural memory of the Gulf converge, reflecting the dynamic and changing environment of the Emirates.
Zeina Abdullah, an Emirati artist, explores themes of home and loss, transforming everyday objects and family rituals into vessels of emotional and cultural memory. Her works create intimate spaces where personal experience becomes a lens through which broader social and historical processes can be contemplated.
Iranian artist Elnaz Javani’s textile works, which she herself defines as sculptures, create surreal, detached worlds populated by floating figures, where each stitch and layer of embroidery becomes part of a personal biography. Her practice, rooted in meticulous handwork and embodied engagement with materials, serves as a metaphor for migration and the search for belonging.
In Alymamah Rashed’s paintings, her Muslima Cyborg emerges at the intersection of Kuwaiti folklore, mythological imagery, globalization, and digital-self. The body is conceived as a garden – a ‘third space’ bridging East and West, formed at the crossroads of cultural poles where tradition and contemporary life, the physical and the spiritual, intertwine.
Press release from 3L Gallery
Image: Asma Yousef Al Ahmed. Folded Memory. 2024. Detail. Fabric and thread. Approximately 150 x 250 cm. Image courtesy of the artist
