Now, Still We Gather does not begin with a thesis. It begins with interruption. Shaped by material constraints, logistical pressures, and an existing archive rather than a thematic selection, the exhibition operates according to what Walter Benjamin might call a constellational logic: fragments drawn together not by prior unity but by the contingencies of the present moment.
Curated by Behrang Samadzadegan as a collaboration between Ava Gallery and FYND, the exhibition brings together twenty artists from the region and beyond: Sabhan Adam, Ahmad Alwaari, Latifa Albokhari, Noor Al Suwaidi, Mehrdad Afsari, Areen, Faezeh Baharloo, Nasser Bakhshi, Elham Etemadi, Khadim Ali, Shohreh Mehran, Ahmad Moualla, Niloofar Rahnama, Parul Parasramka, Neda Saeedi, Sanam SayehAfkan, Soraya Sharghi, Mojtaba Tabatabei, and Behrang Samadzadegan.
Their works do not converge around a single aesthetic or discourse. Instead, they form a field of irreducible difference: a provisional commons where distinct histories, visual languages, and identities remain legible in their dissonance. The connection among them is not similarity but proximity.
The title borrows from Chris Levine’s Higher Power, presented at the 61st Venice Biennale. Levine describes the work as “a beacon of hope and unity,” calling for “making light, not war.” Those words resonate here yet this exhibition’s illumination occurs under constraint. The reliance on archival works, the absence of certain voices, and the limits on mobility and participation all point to a fractured cultural landscape. Absence becomes an active force: what cannot be shown or gathered intensifies the urgency of what remains visible.
If Levine’s Higher Power operates as a singular, vertical projection, Now, Still We Gather unfolds horizontally—as a network of dispersed and contingent relations. The exhibition positions art as a space of relation, where coexistence is constantly negotiated. Unity is constructed and practiced.What emerges is neither resolution nor escape but persistence. The exhibition affirms art’s capacity to sustain dialogue across imposed divisions, and insists that gathering however partial, provisional, or fragile remains meaningful. Hope appears not as a distant ideal but as an immediate condition: arising through proximity, difference, and the ongoing act of assembling.
Press release from Ava Gallery and FYND
Image: Neda Saeedi. Your Sun is a dying Star. 2024. Image courtesy of the artist
