When Solidarity is Not a Metaphor

The exhibition offers a counter-space to the reigning agendas of war, patriarchy, and colonialism, and their toxic impacts on human and non-human ecosystems. The exhibiting artists—alumni, residents, and collaborators of both Cité international des arts in Paris and Alserkal Initiatives in Dubai—challenge the understanding of solidarity as merely an object of theorising and discourse.

Throughout the six-day exhibition and corresponding programme, solidarity is articulated as compassionate porosity, as a feminist, care-driven fluidity of moving across mindsets. Its most humble unit of expression is held in the word “with“—working, thinking, speaking, and simply being in a state of with-ness.

Many of the featured artists in “When Solidarity Is Not a Metaphor“ share the same destiny of forced displacement and are doubly committed, both to igniting questions that address these displacements and to sustaining ethical practices of production.