We are delighted to announce Hujra — حجرةُ . This 16 November – 1 December 2025, Tabari Artspace inaugurates its first exhibition at Alserkal Avenue (Warehouse 81) with Hujra — حجرةُ , a solo presentation by Iraqi artist Miramar Al Nayyar, curated by Abeer Seikaly.
The gallery’s takeover in Alserkal marks a pivotal moment in its trajectory, expanding into Dubai’s dynamic contemporary art district and opening space for process-driven and experimental practices with its roster of artists in parallel with its ongoing DIFC programming.
On view will be a new body of work, Hujra — حجرةُ . The work traces how flow crystallises onto canvas, how light becomes matter, and how painting absorbs the sound of vision. The exhibition stages a dialogue between Al Nayyar’s process and Seikaly’s curatorial approach — a parallel enquiry into how inner states of
consciousness take form through body, material, and space. Presented within the raw architecture of Alserkal Avenue, the exhibition extends the psychological and elemental dimensions of the work into a spatial encounter of reflection and communion.
The title Hujra (حجرةُ ) translates to chamber and derives from the same root as hajar (جرَ حَ , stone). For Al Nayyar, the hujra is an inward space — a psychic chamber of origin and sanctuary, held within the density of stone. While Hujra remains an inner chamber, its reverberations unfold through space. The desert offers the first horizon, an expanse where time stretches and the seeker encounters vision. The studio, in turn, becomes a mirror: a place of introspection and integration, where what has been experienced is reflected on the surface of the canvas. Within Alserkal’s raw gallery, these layers of experience gather and transform reflection into encounter, inviting viewers to enter Miramar’s process rather than observe it from afar.
The series of paintings have been produced in the artist’s self-developed technique. Al Nayyar works with acrylic mixed with calcium carbonate, oil, and airbrushed pigment, to build layered surfaces that shift between density and translucence, silence and inscription. Her paintings emerge through gestures received by the body, where the hand acts as an antenna and script unfolds as a proto-language.
Hujra — حجرةُ continues the collaboration between Al Nayyar and Seikaly, whose shared sensibility draws on architecture, performance, and visual language to create experiences that resonate across scales — personal, elemental, and material. Throughout the process, Seikaly’s curatorial role has been to accompany Al Nayyar in tracing her creative process: transcribing her reflections, articulating how experience moves into form, and revealing the space where making becomes understanding. Their collaboration transforms dialogue into practice, where the act of painting mirrors the act of seeing, and the unseen finds expression.
Press release from Tabari Artspace
Image courtesy of Miramar Al Nayyar
