Hazem Harb’s forthcoming solo exhibition, Not There, Yet Felt, takes peeling as a central metaphor—both literal and symbolic—to reveal layered memories and histories embedded within the walls of his Gaza home. Unlike his earlier works that centred around collective narratives, this new body of work is highly personal and intimate, drawing viewers into Harb’s own lived environment and reflecting his sense of disembodiment, a feeling of being simultaneously connected to and distanced from his home.
Through evocative collage, neon installation, and a poignant self-portrait, Harb subtly but powerfully raises themes of displacement, memory, and our emotional and physical connections to home.
Central to the exhibition is the neon installation Hope is Power, with ‘Power’ flickering intermittently, like the pulse of a beating heart – a signal of hope, life and possibility. Four collages on wood surround this centrepiece, mounted upon a flesh-hued wall. The choice of this skin tone as a backdrop summons the presence of the body, reconnecting it with the home. Derived from photographs of peeling walls captured by a journalist in Gaza, Harb’s collages reveal hidden strata of colour—soft pink, faded blue, deep burgundy—each layer reflecting decades of familial life, shifting aesthetics, and the testimonies of past occupants. The artist posits the question to the audience: “if these walls could talk, what might they say?” Harb’s collages, reconnecting displaced bodies to their former spaces, abstract figures appear to emerge from fragmented surfaces, reconstructing disrupted narratives and repairing the sense of fracturedness felt by those in diaspora, like the artist.
The exhibition also features a poignant self-portrait from Harb’s ongoing Gauze series. Rendered at life-size, it hovers between presence and absence, encapsulating a sense of dislocation and personal vulnerability. The artist’s choice of material, gauze, is at once fragile and protective, evoking the tension between healing and pain and the notion of repair.
On the Edge of Forgetting
Poem accompanying the exhibition by Hazem Harb
The land remembers what we cannot recall,
Layers of time pressed into dust,
Layering over footprints
That never had the chance to settle.
Not there yet,
But in the space between ruin and return,
A shape begins to form.
A fragment, a map, a trace of light
On the edge of forgetting.
The walls are no longer walls,
But veils as thin as a single breath,
Heavy as history.
We walk through them,
Carrying our names like lanterns,
Not yet home, but not lost either.
There is no arrival, only movement.
No ending, only a pulse
A rhythm of what was,
What is,
What refuses to disappear.
Press release from Tabari Artspace
Image: Hazem Harb. Peeling #1. 2025. Detail. Handmade collage on plywood. 120×183 cm. Image courtesy of the artist
