Hunna Art and Emergeast Present Under Her Wing: Acts of Protection
Curated by Alymamah Rashed
Opening December 10, 2024, 6–9 PM
Hunna Art Gallery, Kuwait
On view until January 22, 2026
Hunna Art and Emergeast are proud to present Under Her Wing: Acts of Protection, a seminal group exhibition curated by Kuwaiti artist Alymamah Rashed. This exhibition marks an important collaboration between two women-led galleries dedicated to championing artists from the Arab world and beyond, joining forces to highlight the depth, complexity, and power of contemporary women’s artistic practices.
Under Her Wing explores protection as one of humanity’s oldest creative gestures — shared, inherited, and reimagined by women across generations. Through painting, sculpture, textile, and collage, the exhibition becomes a living archive of artworks that safeguard memory, body, and spirit. The selected artists invoke protection as both material and metaphysical, tracing the feminine as a guardian of thresholds: between the physical and the spiritual, the ancestral and the contemporary.
Featuring artists from Hunna Art — Amina Yahia, Amna Al Baker, Aliyah Al Awadhi, Wafa Al Falahi, Raya Kassisieh, and Joud Fahmy — and artists from Emergeast — Maliheh Zafarnezhad, Hana Moazzeni, Elham Etemadi, Jude Samman, Shadi Yasrebi, Mays Al Moosawi, and Bouthayna Al Muftah — the exhibition unites voices from across the region in a shared exploration of guardianship, devotion, memory, and myth.
Revisiting the deep history of protective traditions in the Arab and Iranian worlds, the exhibition draws on the symbolism of hirz, talismans, calligraphic prayers, handwoven charms, and amuletic forms that once adorned homes and bodies. These ancestral practices find contemporary echoes in works where pigment becomes spell, thread becomes scripture, and clay becomes relic, thus resonating with the visual legacies of modern Arab women artists including Etel Adnan, Baya Mahieddine, and Safia Farhat.
Protection emerges not only as tenderness but as defiance: a refusal of erasure, a gesture of endurance and an affirmation of the sacred. As Al-Ghazali wrote, “The heart is a mirror; polish it with remembrance so that it may reflect the light of truth.” The works in Under Her Wing move within this light, transforming remembrance into a form of care.
This collaboration between Hunna Art and Emergeast underscores a shared commitment to expanding the visibility of women artists, strengthening regional dialogue, and creating new artistic constellations across geographies, histories, and communities. Under Her Wing stands as a testament to the power of collective vision; a space where protection becomes a shared language.
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Opening Reception: December 9, 2024, from 6 to 9 PM
Exhibition Dates: December 9, 2024 – January 22, 2026
Venue: Hunna Art Gallery, Kuwait
Curator: Alymamah Rashed
Presented by: Hunna Art × Emergeast
